Hacker News Reader

Comment by ElProlactin | Hacker News Reader

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.

View on HN

"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.

Wasn't all that long ago people posted pictures of their kids on social media. Someone is going to watch your 12 year old in a swimsuit.

From my private hard-drive?

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.

If the whole publishing industry can't collect copyright violation fines from Meta what makes you think you can?

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.

Fines can be just a cost for the business of training AI if they deem it valuable enough. Is there any enforcement apart from fines?

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.

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.

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.

> 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.

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.

> Posted article has nothing on my data ending up in Kenya.

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.

Bit of a Gish galloping happening here. None of the content/video mentioned in these articles are shown to be non-consensually shared (which is the wink wink suggestion here). I have no doubt Meta has contractors world wide

Meta's pretty explicit about asking for opt-in and laying out exactly how your videos are used as part of onboarding.

I think it's a matter of trust. How many times has Meta proven untrustworthy over the years? Do we have reason other than their pinky-promise -- backed by the potential for nuisance fines and lawsuits -- to assume they should get it now?

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.

Not just their grandparents, the chances are that Meta is processing those videos you take of your kids too even when they say they aren't.

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.

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.

Yelling "FALSE" doesn't make you correct.

You could use Google, ChatGPT, Claude, etc. to educate yourself about the law before you post.

Are you claiming I didn't inform myself? Can you provide some proof for this accusation?

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?

>you're claiming that it's illegal to record people in public in the Netherlands

No I haven't, you should re-read what I actually wrote.

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.

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.

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

Wouldn't the ones in the background match exactly this part of your point though?

> if you are not targeting any individual in particular.

Highly dependent on jurisdiction.

> portrait rights claim

Note that the employees were not recognisable; their faces were blurred out.

But we are talking about Meta removing content from their own website, right?

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?

> Facebook IS NOT public infrastructure

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.

That's clear. But with using Facebook for public discourse, you flushed all ideas about democratic societies down the toilet. Democratic societies should have their public discourse in public places. Not in commercial walled gardens owned by some US maniacs.

No problem with that as long as content responsibility is enlarged to all videos published on their platform.

Given all the sh*t that FB videos contain, I guess Meta's direction will soon be in jail.

They have to choose, safe harbor provisioning or responsibility for the content.

> They have to choose, safe harbor provisioning or responsibility for the content.

Since two decades they decide what goes up and what goes down, by means of their algorithms. And basically nobody complained so far (well, around 12 people on earth did - one of them is me).

It was completely okay for you since then. It was never a big topic. You were absolutely fine with that.

And now they just went one step further and removed something completely because they disliked it (well, who knows how often they already did, but it just never went public enough?!).

... and that's not even stupid. Because they know one thing that some of you didn't realize yet: You'll have forgotten it in a week as soon as public attention moves to next week's big bummer.

If they want common carrier protections I actually think it should not up to meta to remove things they don’t like.

why shouldn't it be up to Meta what content they remove from their website?

It's not even their fault that you misunderstand Facebook as a public space since two decades. It isn't. It never was. It's a commercial website. They let you upload your pointless vacation photos. That's basically it.

> 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.

It's illegal to record people in public spaces in Germany. Not sure how NL is important here, did I miss something?

> Roel Maalderink visited the company's Amsterdam office

> It's illegal to record people in public spaces in Germany.

That's wild. In Ireland, there's no expectation of privacy in a public place, so you can record without issue.

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.

It's because of history. That's why Germany also resisted Google Street View initially.

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 ;) )

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.

Yes, but youre not allowed to use it commercially afaik. Even a youtube clip which is monetised is commercial, I guess.

That would be the right thing. You want to film something, you don't use people passing by as a free extra and don't publish the details where and with whom they were going online. Is is just some American thing that they do not care about feelings of other people.

If you have any respect, don't film other people or at least blur them.

It wasn't in Germany, and my understanding is that in Germany, the issue isn't the video, it's the recording of the audio conversation.

Anyway, still not applicable in the Netherlands.

In Germany it would also be about the video.

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

And? This wasn't in Germany.

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.

Are these constantly filming without user control? How about regular cameras, just ban them?

This did not happen in Germany! If my grandmother was a bike she would have two wheels.

That's not true in that simplified form.

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.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com