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Comment by ythn | Hacker News Reader

There's no technological or legal solution to this problem (short of draconian), the solution is a cultural one.

That's absolutely right. This was clearly obnoxious on the part of at least a couple people as well as the "mob." And it may have violated some clandestine recording statute depending on what jurisdiction it took place in. But I can't feel that the solution is some sort of right to be forgotten on steroids where anyone can get media that don't like for any reason to be taken down across social media and search. (Probably not practical anyway even if people were OK with that--which they wouldn't be.)

Laws can't keep up with technology. But it may be time for a law to come into fruition since everyone is now a paparazzi and you don't have to be a celeb to be a target.

They know the name of the individual who recorded it and transmitted it to Twitter. They can go after her if there is a law and hopefully have a real punishment in place for this kind of behavior.

Furthermore the individual who recorded it also profited off it. She has a career that depends on how much exposure she gets and this is apparently the biggest thing she's done. She was also offered something by Alaska Airlines (their tweet was deleted), tried to get a Buzzfeed job from the attention, sent out some tweet about getting free plane tickets from her followers, and increased her exposure even more via the tons of new followers she gained.

There may be a technical solution on Twitter's end — adjust their feed algorithm. I feel like their shift towards algorithmically ranking the Twitter feed (versus chronologically) has dramatically increased the reach of viral moments like this.

They're trying to maximize user engagement/addiction and it's working. But what cost is their algorithm imposing on society? We're seeing more outrage in politics, more clickbait in journalism, and more privacy violations like this. Engagement-obsessed algorithms have created massive externalities which we all pay for.

I participated in solving it the best way I know how, by doing my best to ignore it completely. I highly encourage others to do the same.

consent to record someone is a thing. Some states are only one party consent, some require both.

Strong two party consent everywhere and no exception for "public spaces" would go a long way.

I'm sure that United would have appreciated that kind of regulation when they had that guy drug off one of their planes.

Really? Then you could sue me for recording you committing a crime?

Ok, let's add an exception for really obvious cases. What if you are taken to trial and later found not guilty (despite my recording being used as evidence against you). Can you sue me now?

You can see how deep the rabbit hole goes. Beware unintended consequences. If you're in a public place then I have every right to record you.

I think this would have more negative effects than positive. There’s the aspect of it’s now impossible to run security cameras or film police beating people.

But what about hearing aids and vision assistance devices? Does HoloLens become impossible without consent from everyone?

I’ve suggested a fix before - once you follow or get more than a certain number of followers, say 15, there should be a fee to tweet, and a much higher one to retweet.

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