Maybe I'm too European to understand, where exactly is harassment occurring? He's asking Meta employees questions, doesn't seem to follow them around, and when they walk away or say no, he doesn't exactly force them to stay or anything? Doesn't there have to be some intimidation or humiliation or similar for it to be harassment? Or asking employees what they think of the products they develop and support is the harassment part?
I am just an American, but I live in Portugal and it is legally not allowed to film people in public without their consent (you also can't have a street facing surveillance camera like in the US). Moreover, people take this rule very seriously. If it appears that you are doing so, they will be visibly bothered (I know some kids who have had uncomfortable interactions because they weren't aware).
I don't think blurring faces fully addresses that (though I'm not commenting on legality in Amsterdam).
I can see the argument that this video is in the public interest (hey, I'm Americanese), but it does seem plausible some people would find it a violation of a norm.
You don’t understand the difference between recording things in good faith vs recording things because you want a reaction you can exploit for personal gains.
Hahahaha, "recording things in good faith." What an insane statement to make to paint this guy in a bad light. Should people also be concerned about walking in good faith, or eating their lunch in good faith? Meta created these creep glasses so people could do exactly what this guy is doing: film people in public (without them knowing). There is no "bad faith" when you're just literally doing what the product is for.
I've heard of journalism before, yes. So? Since when is this harassment?
Can't believe we have corporate bootlickers on HN of all places, I thought we still cared a tiny sliver about privacy? It all went away when we all gave away our private data to the AI companies, or what's the deal?
> Can't believe we have corporate bootlickers on HN of all places,
There are a very large contingent on HN who are against restrictions on corporate activities because they envision themselves as potential beneficiaries of a low regulation environment. Many of them also apparently view criticism itself as a restriction.
Everyone keeps saying he is dutch but he was speaking a different language in the video. I was quite confused because not everything was even dubbed correctly. Also its an auto dubbing through AI. Didn't realize it got automatically selected. So annoying.
Yes exactly. But YouTube selected some AI translation voice over which I did not realize first. So I was quite confused. Once I selected the original audio it was obvious that he is dutch.
It is hypocrisy because Meta are knowingly creating a product that is perfectly suited for filming or photographing people without their knowledge. I find that it speaks ill of someone's character to pretend otherwise. And then they react badly when the very thing that these products enable happens to them. Demonstrating how this is a problem. They try to pretend it isn't a problem and then their actions demonstrate that it IS a problem.
It isn't because we do have laws that actually cover these things already. Of course, they're not the same across the world, law enforcement are not always aware of what the laws are, and this causes confrontations and sometimes overreach. There are also different legal systems that interpret laws differently. For instance in some legal systems the letter of the law carries more weight. In other legal systems the intent of the law is what matters.
There are two great risks here:
1) we pretend we can get by with existing laws. That the existing laws had enough foresight to meaningfully fulfil what the laws were intended to accomplish.
2) we can overreact and damage legitimate freedoms in our eagerness to solve an immediate problem.
For instance, where I live there is a law on the books that prohibits photographing someone being arrested. The law was well-meaning. It was there to protect people from being plastered all over the media until guilt has been determined in a court of law. But it would also prohibit someone from documenting police brutality during an arrest. So the law was never enacted because it failed to balance interests properly.
Right now, where I live, there is a real risk that rules about photography may become overly strict because politicians feel they have to demonstrate an ability to act. So they may end up passing laws that have unforeseen consequences while probably failing to make much of a difference anyway.
We know why these cameras pose a problem. Let's not insult each other's intelligence by pretending they are exactly like poking a traditional camera in someone's face. They're not and we should be able to agree on simple facts. But we also know that we need to have a public discussion about what we're going to do about this so we don't end up introducing draconian laws that take away freedoms we should have. For instance the freedom to document abuses of power, criminal activity, artistic expression etc.
Feel free to point out the hypochrisy. I'll remind you that sharing a video you took of someone without their consent is not the same as recording them and keeping the video strictly for yourself
This person was not trespassing on Meta property and nothing indicates that he was harassing employees who refused to be interviewed. It is perfectly legal in the Netherlands to record people in public places.
You don't need someone's consent to record in public, and if any of the employees objected to the publication of the recording, they could consult with an attorney about a portrait rights claim. Such a claim should be adjudicated by a court, not Facebook.
And let's be clear about the context here: these types of glasses are used by "content creators" to do street interviews that are published online, and they're also used to record all sorts of junk/nonsense ("pranks", pickup artist BS, etc.).
Meta doesn't seem to have a problem with content recorded with these glasses being posted on its platforms, even when it's objectionable, because it's literally everywhere. The only problem here, obviously, was that he was recording Meta employees.
"these types of glasses are used by "content creators" to do street interviews that are published online"
This to me is wild. I use the glasses to film my kids and share it on private hard-drives with grandparents, that's it. It's wild to me that I can surreptitiously film someone on the street and publish it online for views, and the only recourse the person has, is to go to court? Seems insane.
Why does Hollywood require a release but Youtube does not?
EDIT: People are getting hung-up on my use case. But that's not the question posed here.
You might want to think twice about this. The videos from those glasses are uploaded and used for AI training, for which they are also reviewed by humans in Kenya, according to the explainer from Bits Of Freedom (with English subs, here: https://www.bitsoffreedom.nl/campagnes/gluurbril/)
Posted article has nothing on my data ending up in Kenya. If you mean it'll be used by Meta Analytics, that's an opt-in feature (easy Fines in California if they violate this)
I agree posting videos of people without their consent should be illegal, and I thought it was? Why does Hollywood require a release form but YouTube does not?
But that's regardless of whether it was filmed on Meta Glasses or a pocket camera.
It is bizarre to me that you think Meta will be a good steward of your data, regardless of what they've told you or what the law says they can and can't do.
This would be an added fine, because its not just "oopsie I used your data for analytics when you didn't opt-in", it'll be "actually I went ahead and used it for other purposes too".
As someone who trains AI for a living, the resultant fines are definitely not worth my data.
Meta pulls >100B USD in profits, an added fine of even a few hundreds millions USD could be worth it depending on cost-benefit.
I asked what other enforcement mechanisms there could be since an added fine isn't really teeth-y enough unless it follows the EU model for privacy violations: initial fine and a requirement to change behaviour, no change in behaviour increases the fine up to 6% global revenue, and the fines will keep coming until the behaviour is changed.
Perhaps for the company you work at it might not be worth it but we are talking about one of the most profitable companies in the history of mankind.
Profitable companies still need to justify unit economics. And I know it's not believable in this particular forum but Meta doesn't operate on the "let's optimize pricing on breaking laws" principle.
Given the marginal value of my data to training anything (near zero), the lawsuit costs (even if I personally don't see any of the money) is far too large. I am not saying they definitely won't do it, they've bumbled into worse situations before but this feels like an obvious own goal if they try.
You keep referring repeatedly to fines and how easy they are to collect in California, but a quick search indicates that, to date, Facebook has paid $0 in fines to California for CCPA violations.
The biggest fine ever recorded for CCPA violations was against Disney, and it was for a paltry $2.75 million. Disney pulls in $2.75 million in revenue every ~10 mintues.
The potential fines for these types of laws are basically considered a cost of doing business if they ever need to be paid, and pale in comparison to the revenue earned by monetizing user data.
> If you mean it'll be used by Meta Analytics, that's an opt-in feature (easy Fines in California if they violate this)
And, as we all know, tech companies and especially Meta never ever lie or trick you. They were never caught red handed sharing your information and violating your privacy despite claiming the opposite. They also are never fined because they are so careful, and the fines and consequences are always big enough to make them clean up their act.
Oh, wait, for a moment I forgot about the past two decades.
Some auditors in the USA did that already. I was surprised to see that, since here in Europe, people have a much more negative view of Facebook's spyglasses. I think it is similar to getting money from Facebook directly, just as other "sports" people do product placement, such as for Red Bull (Dom Tomato; and many in the bboying scene). I find this annoying to no ends, but money convinces people. My problem is that I am not interested in ads and no "argument" can convince me otherwise. Since I am not interested in ads, I don't watch it and I don't buy from such companies. It places some restrictions onto me, since many companies advertise, in particular the big ones, but it also means I get to know smaller companies better. (Sometimes there is a de-facto monopoly, so I can not always avoid all companies and their ads; in particular for things you really need, such as food and so forth.)
> the only recourse the person has, is to go to court
Well, typically, if you are in public, you can do just about anything with regards to recording. In private the laws are a bit different. Either way it is a barrier.
They want protection from liability and also editorial control?
Regardless of the legal status, it seems clear that when massive companies refuse to allow the media they own to publish a dissenting opinion, we’re not headed towards a ~~more~~ democratic society.
FALSE! It's legal to record in public spaces and share it if you are not targeting any individual in particular. What the author did was instead purpusefully focus on those particular employees.
Author made the people he was recording unrecognizable. So even though he focused on specific employees he didn't violate their right to privacy which means it isn't illegal.
Supposing the video has not been edited further, since the original was taken down, their voices were not censored and there are people in the video who were not in the background and who clearly didn't want to be filmed. I agree that the law has many intricacies, but here I think it's much more the case of their privacy being broken and their consent being ignored
Yes, you're claiming that it's illegal to record people in public in the Netherlands. This is incorrect.
Under Article 139a of the Dutch Criminal Code, you are legally allowed to record any conversation in which you are a participant. You don't need to inform or obtain permission from another party.
There's no law that forbids recording people in public spaces. GDPR and portrait rights claims may be implicated, but if Facebook wants to take the position that it removed this man's videos as an adjudication of claims those recorded never brought themselves, it begs the question: why is it selling its glasses and allowing them to record in the Netherlands in the first place?
> is perfectly legal in the Netherlands to record people in public places.
it's perfectly legal to record but publish, especially in but not limited to a commercial context without explicit consent violates portrait rights under the GDPR in the EU. And I strongly suspect if you posted a video in which people explicitly object to being filmed and flag that on Facebook or other platforms it will get taken down.
I cant just take a photo of a person or even car on the street and just share it online unless its clear the car or person is not the central point of the photo standing alone.
But you raise an interesting point: if this would be against the law in Germany, why is Facebook waiting for these glasses to be banned? It never should have made these available in Germany, and should be using technical means to ensure that they cannot function inside of Germany's borders.
So it's just more proof of the hypocrisy. Meta doesn't care about the privacy of the plebs.
It's perfectly fine to take pictures of the Brandenburger Tor for example and post them online. There will likely be people in that picture but as they are not the main aspect of the image, it will be fine.
It's something different if you zoom in on somebody in that scene and he becomes the main point of the image. Then his personal rights overwhelm the right to document public spaces.
In Sweden for instance it's a bit in-between (unless the law has changed). You're allowed to film in public if you're using a non-stationary camera, but stationary cameras require a permit.
That's an important caveat. We kind of have something similar, in that if you install CCTV, and if it captures an area where people would expect privacy (ie, looking through a window, or into someone's back garden ... which has its own caveats around being a public place or not) you have a right to have that area removed from video coverage.
Yeah, Germany is different here. I am not 100% sure, but in Germany it is allowed if you are not focusing on any particular individual person. It is difficult to argue in absolute terms, which is why most consider public photos forbidden completely (unless for private/personal, very narrow use). Nowadays, in Germany, it has helped me to consider everything forbidden, unless it is explicitly allowed somewhere.
That's pretty understandable, and I've no particular issue with it (although I'm now aware I broke quite a few photo- and video- laws when I was last in Berlin ;) )
The hypocrisy is that meta is creating a tool that their employees are very uncomfortable seeing used on them.
What the law says about consent is irrelevant to the hypocrisy, and the videos are automatically uploaded to meta without anyone's consent anyway. You know this very well, there is no need to cosplay the smart devil's advocate.
Where do you get the "without their consent" bit from?
The hypocrisy is probably located around here:
> "I've been making satirical videos about all kinds of things for ten years: Gaza, Ukraine, refugees. Funny videos that push boundaries and provoke discussion. But I've never experienced a video being removed before.
I agree, I cannot control what other people will do. Are you applying this fear to all other facets of your life? I guess not, since that would mean you'd live in a state of constant fear and paranoia.
The mental gymnastics that people do here to defend these untouchable corporations is disgusting. From Meta to OpenAi, for a lot of people here it's just a "yeah, but actually". I've reported everything from holocaust glorification to videos of people being filmed in public in europe just to be humiliated, to obvious far right propaganda done by russian linked accounts, nothing goes against Meta's policy anymore, except when it's about them...
Outside basic network effects like real names Facebook has contributed essentially nothing of value to the world. (And no, don't tell me "React, Pytorch". People were screaming about React's license) The network effects barely matter too because their AI bans you whenever and feeds are so useless you never see what anyone posts
Instagram went from a site for photographers to Reels everywhere (and login walls on every page)
Other than ad revenue, the company hasn't had any big wins. VR didn't take off. Metaverse didn't take off. AI models didn't take off. All multi-billion dollar ventures. Any other board would have sacked him by now.
it's because he controls the board by being the majority voting shareholder.
This is what happens when the gov't decides that it is legal for share classes with different voting rights. It ensures that you can sell equity to obtain money, without actually giving up control of said company at all. In theory, buyers would discount the sold equity due to this, but in practice, they don't (esp. if they're retail buyers).
Instagram is full of videos of guys harassing and antagonizing people in public as "pranks". And this is not some coincidence, since both products are from the same company, they basically unleashed this for engagement.
Corporate censorship. Do we want such a future in general,
where big companies decide onto you what you can see and what
you can not see? These walled digital gardens they built up
are already such a huge issue.
Now I don't depend on CIAbook, formerly
known as Facebook, in any way, shape or form. And I don't use
Suckerberg's Spyglasses either - hopefully others feel in a
similar way, but unfortunately money convinces people, and I
noticed a few "auditors" using spyglasses allegedly for
"protection" (though, why they don't use normal vide cameras
instead, beats me - perhaps they are not truthful). I fear
that the spyglasses will be a success since Suckerberg is so
sold on spying on mankind. If Google were not to exist, Facebook
would be the number #1 evil company right now.
The title is misleading - it sounds like they specifically went there to harass employees by filming them, and Meta took down the videos for harassment, like they routinely do if this is reported on their platforms. I'm really not sure what the issue is.
He did harass them a bit. I'm looking forward to Meta taking down all videos where someone is a bit harassed. Internet will be a much nicer place!
Maybe I'm too European to understand, where exactly is harassment occurring? He's asking Meta employees questions, doesn't seem to follow them around, and when they walk away or say no, he doesn't exactly force them to stay or anything? Doesn't there have to be some intimidation or humiliation or similar for it to be harassment? Or asking employees what they think of the products they develop and support is the harassment part?
I don't think blurring faces fully addresses that (though I'm not commenting on legality in Amsterdam).
I can see the argument that this video is in the public interest (hey, I'm Americanese), but it does seem plausible some people would find it a violation of a norm.
Can't believe we have corporate bootlickers on HN of all places, I thought we still cared a tiny sliver about privacy? It all went away when we all gave away our private data to the AI companies, or what's the deal?
There are a very large contingent on HN who are against restrictions on corporate activities because they envision themselves as potential beneficiaries of a low regulation environment. Many of them also apparently view criticism itself as a restriction.
It's obvious he's making a point, but there is no harassment that I see.
FFS ... it's this kind of goal-post shifting that ends with sign-holding grannies being arrested for terrorism.
It is hypocrisy because Meta are knowingly creating a product that is perfectly suited for filming or photographing people without their knowledge. I find that it speaks ill of someone's character to pretend otherwise. And then they react badly when the very thing that these products enable happens to them. Demonstrating how this is a problem. They try to pretend it isn't a problem and then their actions demonstrate that it IS a problem.
It isn't because we do have laws that actually cover these things already. Of course, they're not the same across the world, law enforcement are not always aware of what the laws are, and this causes confrontations and sometimes overreach. There are also different legal systems that interpret laws differently. For instance in some legal systems the letter of the law carries more weight. In other legal systems the intent of the law is what matters.
There are two great risks here:
1) we pretend we can get by with existing laws. That the existing laws had enough foresight to meaningfully fulfil what the laws were intended to accomplish.
2) we can overreact and damage legitimate freedoms in our eagerness to solve an immediate problem.
For instance, where I live there is a law on the books that prohibits photographing someone being arrested. The law was well-meaning. It was there to protect people from being plastered all over the media until guilt has been determined in a court of law. But it would also prohibit someone from documenting police brutality during an arrest. So the law was never enacted because it failed to balance interests properly.
Right now, where I live, there is a real risk that rules about photography may become overly strict because politicians feel they have to demonstrate an ability to act. So they may end up passing laws that have unforeseen consequences while probably failing to make much of a difference anyway.
We know why these cameras pose a problem. Let's not insult each other's intelligence by pretending they are exactly like poking a traditional camera in someone's face. They're not and we should be able to agree on simple facts. But we also know that we need to have a public discussion about what we're going to do about this so we don't end up introducing draconian laws that take away freedoms we should have. For instance the freedom to document abuses of power, criminal activity, artistic expression etc.
You don't need someone's consent to record in public, and if any of the employees objected to the publication of the recording, they could consult with an attorney about a portrait rights claim. Such a claim should be adjudicated by a court, not Facebook.
And let's be clear about the context here: these types of glasses are used by "content creators" to do street interviews that are published online, and they're also used to record all sorts of junk/nonsense ("pranks", pickup artist BS, etc.).
Meta doesn't seem to have a problem with content recorded with these glasses being posted on its platforms, even when it's objectionable, because it's literally everywhere. The only problem here, obviously, was that he was recording Meta employees.
This to me is wild. I use the glasses to film my kids and share it on private hard-drives with grandparents, that's it. It's wild to me that I can surreptitiously film someone on the street and publish it online for views, and the only recourse the person has, is to go to court? Seems insane.
Why does Hollywood require a release but Youtube does not?
EDIT: People are getting hung-up on my use case. But that's not the question posed here.
I agree posting videos of people without their consent should be illegal, and I thought it was? Why does Hollywood require a release form but YouTube does not?
But that's regardless of whether it was filmed on Meta Glasses or a pocket camera.
Did you think they were making it up? https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0q33nvj0qpo
I couldn't conceive of a world in which I'd provide meta with video of my family. Or... anything, really.
As someone who trains AI for a living, the resultant fines are definitely not worth my data.
I asked what other enforcement mechanisms there could be since an added fine isn't really teeth-y enough unless it follows the EU model for privacy violations: initial fine and a requirement to change behaviour, no change in behaviour increases the fine up to 6% global revenue, and the fines will keep coming until the behaviour is changed.
Perhaps for the company you work at it might not be worth it but we are talking about one of the most profitable companies in the history of mankind.
Given the marginal value of my data to training anything (near zero), the lawsuit costs (even if I personally don't see any of the money) is far too large. I am not saying they definitely won't do it, they've bumbled into worse situations before but this feels like an obvious own goal if they try.
The biggest fine ever recorded for CCPA violations was against Disney, and it was for a paltry $2.75 million. Disney pulls in $2.75 million in revenue every ~10 mintues.
The potential fines for these types of laws are basically considered a cost of doing business if they ever need to be paid, and pale in comparison to the revenue earned by monetizing user data.
And, as we all know, tech companies and especially Meta never ever lie or trick you. They were never caught red handed sharing your information and violating your privacy despite claiming the opposite. They also are never fined because they are so careful, and the fines and consequences are always big enough to make them clean up their act.
Oh, wait, for a moment I forgot about the past two decades.
They've played fast and loose with copyrighted material for years, as shown in court records.
They company was founded on the principle of breaking privacy law, as highlighted in Zuckerberg's famous Dumb Fucks conversation.
Meta does what Meta can get away with and you really can't do anything about it without exceptionally deep pockets.
The publishing industry has more money than you do and they failed too.
> the only recourse the person has, is to go to court
Well, typically, if you are in public, you can do just about anything with regards to recording. In private the laws are a bit different. Either way it is a barrier.
And unless Meta want's to pay me $1000's in fines (pretty sure my videos are worth less to them), sharing with Meta analytics is opt-in.
In contrast to what people think, Facebook IS NOT public infrastructure.
If Meta removes some content from Meta website, and you don't like that, it's a you problem, right?
They want protection from liability and also editorial control?
Regardless of the legal status, it seems clear that when massive companies refuse to allow the media they own to publish a dissenting opinion, we’re not headed towards a ~~more~~ democratic society.
https://www.anp.nl/blog/305/privacywetgeving-mag-je-filmen-o... is a decent article(in Dutch) about some of the complexities of Dutch privacy law when it comes to filming people in public spaces.
> if you are not targeting any individual in particular.
You could use Google, ChatGPT, Claude, etc. to educate yourself about the law before you post.
Under Article 139a of the Dutch Criminal Code, you are legally allowed to record any conversation in which you are a participant. You don't need to inform or obtain permission from another party.
There's no law that forbids recording people in public spaces. GDPR and portrait rights claims may be implicated, but if Facebook wants to take the position that it removed this man's videos as an adjudication of claims those recorded never brought themselves, it begs the question: why is it selling its glasses and allowing them to record in the Netherlands in the first place?
No I haven't, you should re-read what I actually wrote.
Note that the employees were not recognisable; their faces were blurred out.
it's perfectly legal to record but publish, especially in but not limited to a commercial context without explicit consent violates portrait rights under the GDPR in the EU. And I strongly suspect if you posted a video in which people explicitly object to being filmed and flag that on Facebook or other platforms it will get taken down.
Anyway, still not applicable in the Netherlands.
I cant just take a photo of a person or even car on the street and just share it online unless its clear the car or person is not the central point of the photo standing alone.
Only few exceptions on that
But you raise an interesting point: if this would be against the law in Germany, why is Facebook waiting for these glasses to be banned? It never should have made these available in Germany, and should be using technical means to ensure that they cannot function inside of Germany's borders.
So it's just more proof of the hypocrisy. Meta doesn't care about the privacy of the plebs.
It's perfectly fine to take pictures of the Brandenburger Tor for example and post them online. There will likely be people in that picture but as they are not the main aspect of the image, it will be fine.
It's something different if you zoom in on somebody in that scene and he becomes the main point of the image. Then his personal rights overwhelm the right to document public spaces.
That's wild. In Ireland, there's no expectation of privacy in a public place, so you can record without issue.
What the law says about consent is irrelevant to the hypocrisy, and the videos are automatically uploaded to meta without anyone's consent anyway. You know this very well, there is no need to cosplay the smart devil's advocate.
The hypocrisy is probably located around here:
> "I've been making satirical videos about all kinds of things for ten years: Gaza, Ukraine, refugees. Funny videos that push boundaries and provoke discussion. But I've never experienced a video being removed before.
we do indeed live in a low trust society as of now.
Instagram went from a site for photographers to Reels everywhere (and login walls on every page)
Zuckerberg is awful. Awful, awful, awful.
Other than ad revenue, the company hasn't had any big wins. VR didn't take off. Metaverse didn't take off. AI models didn't take off. All multi-billion dollar ventures. Any other board would have sacked him by now.
it's because he controls the board by being the majority voting shareholder.
This is what happens when the gov't decides that it is legal for share classes with different voting rights. It ensures that you can sell equity to obtain money, without actually giving up control of said company at all. In theory, buyers would discount the sold equity due to this, but in practice, they don't (esp. if they're retail buyers).
Because of the existence of Class B shares.
dont worry i wont lmao
Now I don't depend on CIAbook, formerly known as Facebook, in any way, shape or form. And I don't use Suckerberg's Spyglasses either - hopefully others feel in a similar way, but unfortunately money convinces people, and I noticed a few "auditors" using spyglasses allegedly for "protection" (though, why they don't use normal vide cameras instead, beats me - perhaps they are not truthful). I fear that the spyglasses will be a success since Suckerberg is so sold on spying on mankind. If Google were not to exist, Facebook would be the number #1 evil company right now.