Please stop live tweeting people’s private conversations | Hacker News Reader

Please stop live tweeting people’s private conversations

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50 pointsjoosters86 comments

That yearofelan thing was one of the lamest things I've seen. There is nothing entertaining about a celebrity harassing a woman on a plane via sexually harassing notes.

You have no idea what's she's been through, where her state of mind is. Maybe the greater internet community hasn't experienced fucking terrible things in their lives that push you to the edge. Maybe they haven't had a family member with mental illness. This Elan guy clearly hasn't.

I don't understand why people are supportive of him being a 5th grade internet troll in real life. If he would have stood up and said eat my dick to her in person instead of sending passive aggressive notes he would have been kicked off the flight, arrested and congrats delaying everyone. Instead he sends creepy threatening notes to her. Great. Good job troll. Way to further ruin someones day.

He's lucky she didn't mention the notes to the flight attendants where it's possible everyone's thanksgiving gets ruined because the flight gets diverted and he gets arrested.

I'm not sure why all the websites picked it up and said it "Won Thanksgiving."

Sure, all those charities where awesome people are working at helping feed the poor don't win Thanksgiving, but some creepy celebrity saying "eat my dick" to some obviously stressed out women wins? Good job internet.

And dammit he trolled me from afar because I got so worked up I wrote this damn post about it.

Thank you!

Don't air your dirty laundry in public if you don't want everyone seeing it. Seriously, what happened to discretion? If I take off all of my clothes and run through Central Park, I can't get mad because someone took a nude picture of me. Don't go to the coffee shop to make a scene with your spouse. The problem is that people aren't embarrassed by their bad behavior without someone shaming them publicly. Adults ought to know better.

Yeah, I hate those people who show their human side in public expecting me to sympathetically ignore it. I think the state could really earn back some money for all the cameras in public places. Maybe with a TV show like this: "London Life, your neighbours firsthand -> Do you know this idiot? He broke down in Oxford street after seeing his 'girlfriend' with his best friend kissing. Such a shitty looser." -.-

You consider crying over a cheating lover bad behavior?

No, of course not. But maybe the heartless persons who think washing your dirty laundry in public is for public entertainment and out of rudeness.

Well, the parent post was talking about bad behavior, and the roll out someone crying as an example. But now you are talking about something different from what the parent was referring to. Just trying to understand the context of your statement. It's important to know when someone ignores a parent comment and goes off on another tangent.

In response to your point, what you are talking about is bad behavior. I mean, if you do something out of rudeness, that pretty much defines it right there.

And no, I don't think publicly shaming someone who is publicly shaming someone is bad, as in the case of "Diane," especially with the outcome.

Since when is dirty laundry exclusively about bad behavior? (see http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dirty%20laundry : private information that causes shame and embarrassment when it is made public) The OP thinks doing something that should be private in public is bad behavior, which is ridiculous.

@Diane: see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6827823 (edit) or https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6827673

> Since when is dirty laundry exclusively about bad behavior?

Never said it was. What I said was someone using your dirty laundry "for public entertainment and out of rudeness" is bad behavior. I mean, it's right there in your definition: "and out of rudeness." I thought it was pretty obvious.

> @Diane "Maybe they haven't had a family member with mental illness."

Yep. That was a perspective I hadn't though about before. The sentence after that "This Elan guy clearly hasn't" commits the same crime he's accusing Elan of, but the point is sound.

That being said, the woman didn't have a mental illness, and the assault at the end was inexcusable.

But what if I'm having a quiet conversation over coffee with a colleague in Starbucks (lambasting our boss), intended for our ears only, because inviting said (perhaps opposite sex) colleague to my house would be odd/creepy (or it's lunchtime)? What if the person on the table next to us can just about make out our conversation and decides it's interesting/humorous enough to tweet?

Perhaps we don't want to meet in the middle of a park or a deserted bridge - we want a coffee and it's cold. We're expecting some level of privacy and we're not broadcasting - we're just unfortunately seated.

I'm all for discretion and appropriate behaviour in public, but just because you can hear something doesn't mean you should tell the world about it. Have some decency! (I'm not referring to you personally!)

Well, it depends. With the "roof breakup" stuff I have no problem, because there's little editorializing and no involvement, just a running report of those statements of which these two people have decided they absolutely must unburden themselves in public.

But the stuff on the plane is a whole different matter. Granted, the lady in 7-whatever wasn't behaving particularly well, and she should probably have known better. I've seen people behave similarly when I've flown around holidays, and especially when travel is delayed or interrupted by circumstances beyond anyone's control. But "Elan"'s behavior was even worse. "Eat my dick?" Honestly?

This isn't a case of someone answering poor public behavior with class; this is a case of someone behaving childishly within earshot of someone who is far more childish still, who giggles in joy at the opportunity to misbehave in an utterly crass fashion with some confidence that he'll receive kudos for it from his Twitter followers, on whose qualities I shall not here speculate.

I mean, really. I was with him up until the glass of wine; I thought "Good choice! Sending a gift shows consideration, and no doubt the note sent with it will explain that he's sorry she's having a bad time, but that they're all in the same notional boat, and perhaps the accompanying gift will help her relax and roll with the punches." Then I read the note.

By the time I got to the end of the travesty he perpetrated for his adoring Twitter public, I was glad she slapped him; I hope she made it a good one. "Spare the rod and spoil the child," after all, and it's quite plain from his own Twitter feed that this infant escaped preschool far too soon.

As long as they aren't identified (by name, picture, etc.) who cares?

Also, this article is pretty lame. They complain about people live tweeting other people's private issues but then they share EVERY single one of these examples with links and backstories. This is doing the exact opposite that they preach.

People who may know them have more context and might recognise them, yes. If I'm on a flight from Amsterdam to London and I'm complaining to a friend about my boss, someone livetweeting my hilarious rant might keep me pretty unidentifiable by just using my first name.

But my boss probably knows I was on a flight from Amsterdam to London that day (as I asked him for permission to take the time off) and based on the rant will probably know it's me, talking about him. That could have some pretty serious consequences. Of course, maybe I shouldn't complain about work in public, but would you honestly want to live in a world where you couldn't?

So if I were to identify your family's address or your ssn online you wouldn't care? What about just your mothers phone number?

This IS identifying someone...

At the end of the day, it's just bullying, isn't it? "Hey everyone, look at that kid who's just wet themselves - hahaha!"

We've all done it. Doesn't make it right. Even if the person you're mocking has been a complete tool, you don't know the backstory. Sure, they may just be a horrible person, but imagine their kid had just died and as a result they'd snapped over something completely trivial?

I really think it takes a bit more than conducting oneself poorly on an aircraft to qualify for "horrible person". Kind of an asshole sometimes, at worst -- and that, of course, assumes that her behavior was accurately reported by this "Elan" item, in the course of proving himself scum entire.

I count 18 instances of the word "tweet" and 7 of "Twitter" in that short post. For the love of language please stop referring to the medium. She makes a fair point, and I agree with her in the case of the man whose full name was revealed, but who is harmed when a story about "Diane" or "a couple in Brooklyn" is published?

Like Mike Rogers says it: "You can't have your privacy violated if you don't know your privacy is violated." Or wut? (http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131029/18020225059/mike-r...)

And in case of "Diane": You have a bad day, some depression or are socially incompetent? Shame on you, I am the Punisher and the world will now mock you for your failure!!1!

Some of the same people who had a huge problem with "creep shots" will take a surreptitious photo of someone in order to ridicule them, as if the lack of sexual interest makes it okay. I dunno, all I can figure is that everyone is terrible in their own way, and we love coming up with convoluted justifications as to why we're not terrible.

There are a range of people out there, all of them on all kinds of spectrums. Empathy, privacy, personality disorders, stress, oppression, rage, kindness, selfishness, selflessness, love, hate.

The thing about 'real' friendships is that you can form into groups of people that you broadly correlate with. I think some people are naturally always going to be in conflict. With the internet you can't avoid this. Everyone is thrust together, and we realise that the spectrums really wider and more diverse than we realised. This is a story as old as long-distance communication and was very well illustrated yesterday in the whole Joyent "I would fire this man if I had the chance" thing.

I have come to realise that there are people who really are happy to share very private things. I wouldn't dream of doing that. I haven't really associated with them 'in real life' because I don't think what I had for breakfast, or my medical or sexual history are anyone's business but my own and those close to me.

How does this relate to TFA?

There are a lot of people out there. They're all different. I find the examples in TFA abhorrent. I would feel violated to have my personal conversations broadcast. But we're all humans and we all have to get along, because we're all only humans. It's the price we pay for society and this wonderful Internet thing.

The upside for me here is that maybe people will have an ounce of self awareness and keep stuff like this a bit more to themselves versus throwing tantrums in front of everyone when the smallest thing goes wrong.

Only if you think that public humiliation is an effective form of education

I imagine it to be quite effective education, personally.

Groupthink is not a good educator.

I agree that it's not good, because it's mindless and can just as easily be wrong as right, but it is effective.

Yes, indeed. It is very effective and this is why it is so dangerous. Mind police stuff occurred the last century in Germany two times in a row with devastating results.

Can you imagine how much self awareness folks will have when everyone can switch on their wearable device and record it live in HD?

I guess it's comforting knowing that someone who has a job because of social media is willing to speak out about one of its particular excesses?

That said, what is said in public is not private. This is generally good legal principle (as it pertains to the First Amendment) and it's good personal habit. If you don't want something to be exposed to the greater world and for perpetuity, than be discreet with whom and where you share it.

It's not a direct consequence of our society being more untrustworthy, it's a direct consequence of today's technology and medium. You didn't think the ability to near-limitlessly duplicate content and effortlessly and carelessly distribute it wouldn't have a few downsides, did you?

> If you don't want something to be exposed to the greater world and for perpetuity

So the alternative is for me to hide in the basement for the rest of my life? That's a terrible argument. Public spaces are for everyone, new technology is no excuse for bad manners and offensive behavior.

Uh, sorry. Why does anything require you to have to "hide in the basement for the rest of [your] life?" I walk into the supermarket knowing fully that a surveillance camera is at the front door, yet my distaste of that kind of surveillance does not force me to die of hunger (as all markets near me have cameras near by)

I'm not arguing that the situation is good or bad but that it simply is, particularly because of today's communication technology. Are you really going to argue from a stance of "But I don't wanna!"?

(n.b. the inside of a store is not a public space, so a bit of a bad example...)

Outside, surveillance cameras are (supposedly) there for security. If the camera footage was used for other purposes then it would obviously be a problem. If the CCTV operator uploaded fun clips of people of the street to youtube then they would be in the wrong.

Once again, it comes down to manners, and not technology.

For instance, if a high-res camera was set up outside in public and recorded 'public' but hard-to-see stuff, such as numbers visible on the front of your credit card, or text messages on the screen of your phone, do you still think that would be acceptable? It's in public, after all...

It's not whether any situation is good or not, it's what is a direct consequence of the technology and the laws we have. If you want freedom of expression and the Internet, then this is something you have to adapt to.

If you're going to ask "But why does the First Amendment mean that my public behavior can be for all to see and hear?"...I don't think the principle is much different than it is with photography. I can go out and take photos on Times Square and not have to worry about getting everyone's permission before I upload it on the Internet, even if such a photo inevitably damages someone's privacy (perhaps I inadverdently capture someone on his way to a strip club?)

Even Google blurs out things from street view... all of which is in public view.

Our difference here is that as far as I can tell, your viewpoint is a bit of a fatalistic one - 'this is something you have to adapt to'. I am saying that this is not true. Just because something is possible does not make it right, and we don't have to abdicate our sense of what is right simply because technology has progressed and made more things possible.

This actually bolsters my point. Google blurs out faces because a) its product is to show streets, not faces and b) because Google realizes not blurring out faces will make the public hostile to them.

The key to this is technology. Obviously, good technology is what allows Google to map images to places and to do so at a scale that captures most of the industrialized world. This makes many people uncomfortable as it gives the impression that Google is all-seeing all the time, when the reality is that such images are so time-delayed as to have no surveillance benefit. Yet, there's no need for Google to fight this since their product is images of the street, not of random passersby.

The less-obvious facet of technology here is that Google has the tech to blur faces en masse. If Google had to blur images out by hand, do you think they'd do so without specific requests first?

Similarly, if there was a technology that existed that insta-blurred everyone's faces in a random photo via a master database of opt-ins and advanced facial recognition, it's feasible that photographers would be required to use it , in some nations. But as that tech is a long ways off (it's not the tech that's hard, it's that database), the U.S. courts have found it better to let people take photos unhindered rather than chill free speech by leaving open the possibility that you could be sued for taking photos of public activity.

To go back to the original topic...you're right, I am being fatalistic. But I'm also being realistic and I'm also considering the greater framework of laws here. So I throw the question back to you: what is your proposed solution to the problem other than hoping that everyone obeys on the honor system? In my opinion, there is no legislation that could be passed that would not infringe on free speech at large.

I believe we should give others consideration at all times, unless or until they earn either our respect or our ire. It becomes more and more obvious how old-fashioned and unpopular people find this view.

That wouldn't necessarily be a problem (well, a public one, anyway) without the great power that's been bestowed upon individuals by The Internet. All hail the internet, enabler of bad behavior from 4chan to Twitter (though with the kind of deeds documented here, I'm starting to wonder where the difference between the two went).

Now we have a total disregard for others coupled with the widespread ability to disseminate any kind of vitriol at the speed of LTE.

Not what I'd call social progress.

Why doesn't shoving a private conversation in my ear qualify as earning my ire?

Unfortunately if you ever drink in a bar, eat in a restaurant - hell, pretty much do anything in public - at some point you're going to overhear someone's conversation. If it bugs you that much, you could stay at home (or get headphones) :-)

It's pretty minor ire. But on the other hand, it's a pretty minor act to relay a conversation held in public.

Haha, perhaps, yes! But also why do we feel the need to relay it? Tit for tat?! Can't we just be better than that?! If you're really, really annoyed, why not just say to the conversationalists - "perhaps you could keep it down?"

I'd wager that it's generally just wanting to share something funny. I don't know, it doesn't appeal to me personally. I just don't see why you'd get upset about being the target if you were being that loud in the first place.

Sure, but your hilarity may be coming from someone else's tragedy (or certainly something they probably don't consider funny), and maybe you're not being loud you're just sat somewhere you can be overheard? And again - sharing the conversation you've overhead is unlikely to be a selfless act, is it?!

That said, horses for courses - we can agree to disagree :-)

Because your ear is not sacred. Welcome to human civilization! Sometimes you are going to hear things not meant for you. You will be judged on how you react when this occurs.

My ear is exactly as sacred as their public conversation is. I agree that my ear is not sacred, but that just means that neither are their words. If you don't want to be overheard, don't speak in a way that people can easily overhear you.

The author makes great points and I totally agree with her. People who publish private conversations are little Hunter Moores. It's pure voyeurism and bullying. It's about exploiting others for a little internet fame.

Ugh, if you are in public it's not private. Might as well rename the title to "Please stop live tweeting people's public conversations" if you want to make a real point.

Yeah, I see forward to funeral live reports. These tearful moments are so much better than movies.

Ironic that you're asking people to stop live tweeting conversations, then you link to said conversations and give them more pageviews.

I'm really really confused.

A cool blogger can tell a woman to "eat my dick" and get a positive story in Huffington Post. The only issue raised on HN is his tweeting of her conversation, not his sexual harassment.

But a guy refuses a pull request that changes "him" to "them" and there is huge uproar?

Can someone please explain feminism to me? How do I get from "feminism is by definition the belief that women are people" to this?

It's weird, I somewhat agree but somehow I find them very entertaining, do you think the damage is that bad, especially if there are no names?

It still demonstrates a lack of concern for the privacy of the people you overheard

what? People talking in public places have privacy?

Of course they do, just as people walking around in public can have a sensible expectation of not being filmed or photographed randomly.

Interestingly, (to me) this is not an expectation I share, nor is it one I expected others to have. I assume my actions in public are captured by any number of shop cams, police cams, and tourist videos/photos and just straight iPhones being used for whatever.

I'll note, that unlike others I this conversation have speculated, I'm not young, but I do live in a city - Seattle.

I’m not sure if you are being ironic but just in case you aren’t:

Imagine you’re in a store, waiting at the checkout, having a conversation with your SO that has revealed some key difference of opinion on a topic that affects your relationship. You’re having the conversation in a public place not because the subject matter is public but because that’s where you happen to be at the time and the conversation is important to you and your SO. Now imagine the person who has been standing behind you in line doing something on their phone interrupts you and says "Your conversation is hilarious, I’m live tweeting it as you speak, please carry on" with a big grin on their face. How would you feel about that?

Thank you for the example, it's hard to understand that so many people cannot come up with such scenarios. They are proving a total lack of empathy.

I would feel extremely embarrassed and stupid at having carried out such a private conversation in a place where people could obviously overhear me, and would take care not to do so again.

Of course, it can be embarrassing, but sometimes you are too emotional to not carry it out instantly. This display of humanity should not be frowned upon, but sympathetically ignored. If a real mental breakdown occurs, we should even get involved and help each other instead of posting it on twitter. Your victim blaming doesn't make it right, it just shows a lack of empathy.

Are you calling the woman abusing a flight attendant and the couple loudly breaking up on a rooftop "victims", or are you just referring to the more mundane events?

Of course they are victims. Only because somebody does something, which might be annoying or in case of Diane offending (for the flight personnel), does not mean they become outlawed and can be rightfully, publicly and globally punished for their missteps by anyone who likes to do so.

I think you only see black and white instead of the whole spectrum of the human condition.

I really don't get it, so: victims of what?

I'm guessing the answer is something like "public shaming", in which case this does not make sense to me. It's like saying that a person who hits himself on the thumb with a hammer is a victim of assault and battery. They caused their own public shaming when they made a public spectacle of themselves. The tweeters just magnified it. It would have happened even without them.

In your example the hammer is controlled by yourself, while there are always other people behind public humiliation. When somebody hits you with the hammer (humiliates you in public), is this your own fault? You really blame the victims here. You say it's their own fault for being picked on, but this is simply not the case. They had a bad day, that does not justify anything. The state is for punishment. Do you blame rape victims for being attractive and for wearing "risky" clothes?

Well, I'll explain my thinking and maybe you can tell me where you think I got it wrong without resorting to bad analogies involving rape.

Public shaming requires two elements: a shameful act, and an audience.

The shameful act is usually provided by the person in question. I say "usually" because there are cases where people are shamed for rumors or outright lies. I think we can both agree that, in this case, the person provided it themselves.

The audience, in acts usually considered to be "public shaming", is provided by a second party. That is, the shameful act would have been private, but then another party brought it to light by providing an audience.

In this case, the audience was already there by virtue of the environment in which the person carried out their shameful act. The tweeters enlarged this audience, but they did not provide it as might have been the case if they had been tweeting a private conversation. Even without them, these people would have still shown their shame to a couple hundred other people.

Note that I am not saying they "deserved" this treatment or anything like that, I'm just saying that they made it happen themselves. The people everybody is getting angry at for posting the events weren't even necessary for it.

In the case of the couple who talk about their relationship on their balcony, there is no audience they realize and no shameful act. Just a private conversation _made_ public. Like somebody photographing you (just you) pissing on a tree without your knowledge. When the photographer publishes this photo in a newspaper it is illegal and unethical.

  I'm just saying that they made it happen themselves.
  The people everybody is getting angry at for posting
  the events weren't even necessary for it.

This is were I disagree. Diane behaved badly, but she didn't pick a fight with the whole world. The people who publicize the events are necessary for it. They are essential for the public shaming. Without them it would be just a short story some passengers would have told their families and friends. Something Diane would probably be ok with. By tweeting this, it is like Diane has acted in front of a dozen journalists who take photos while laughing at her. It's a malicious act, like a hidden camera to make everybody laugh at her.

Shouting on a balcony is not something a reasonable person thinks cannot be overheard by huge numbers of surrounding people.

As for the rest, I guess that's that. You see a qualitative difference between embarrassing yourself in a crowd and embarrassing yourself in a crowd and online, while I only see a quantitative difference.

@Shouting on a balcony: They even thought about this possibility loudly (see the article). It is pretty unethical to not say anything when you know they don't want you to hear them, especially when it's about private stuff and you are planning to post it on twitter.

@Quality of shame: I think it's more about the audience you as a person expect. Everybody would behave differently when we know we might be watched by the whole internet. Did you ever watch "The Truman Show"?

Another thing I don't get: how is it possible to "know they don't want you to hear them" when they're shouting in public? The very act indicates that they don't care about being heard. If they didn't want you to hear them, they would have gone inside.

From #roofbreakup:

"I don't think we need to talk about this up here with some random guy over there." -guy (uh oh, I'm that guy over here)

"He's just sitting on his fucking phone he doesn't care (talking about me). Answer my question." -girl

But he does care, he sneakily extends the audience to such an extent, both persons obviously wouldn't agree with. He is one reason why it will be more and more uncomfortable to have conversations in spaces, that are originally meant for people and their human needs.

see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6827715 & https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6827592

Why? The purpose of embarrassment, as I understand it, is to create emotional significance for something that negatively affects others. So unless you are talking about something vulgar or being offensive you haven’t done anything socially remiss.

This isn’t to say I condone live tweeting of behavior that is socially remiss. In those instances one should think carefully about how to influence that person to do better. Humiliating them on social network is not it. You lose any moral high ground the second you do that. Personally speaking I also think very carefully about whether it is worth my time.

I actually knew a guy who used to do exactly that, back before he got his nose broken. I was curious about that; he was awfully vague about the circumstances, but allowed as how it'd happened in a Safeway checkstand line. As may be, the experience did wonders for his circumspection and consideration of others. Didn't help him much, of course, this being the same fellow who used to say that enforcing other people's marriage vows was no concern of his, which worked great for him right up until he got shot. Quite a funeral, that was -- I never in my life saw so many flower arrangements around a casket, or so few with cards attached.

My guess is that people who are now 5-10 years old will never find this sort of thing creepy. Eventually, our society will finish internalizing that there is no such thing as a private conversation in a public space.

a horrible vision. humanity is about empathy, showing vulnerability, being close to each other, arguing with each other and helping to understand each other. when this is always accompanied by vitriolic comments and shitstorms we will live in a cage of groupthink and democratic oppression.

We don't need the NSA - we all monitor each other.

This is perhaps the most aggravating thing of all.

I don't have a Facebook account, but sometimes I wonder what profile I have on there from pictures and mentions by other people concerning me.

Is the problem the sharing or the tweeting? Or the live part? Or is it all 3?

Because, frankly, this isn't new. It's the gossip train, except now digital, and a bit more anonymous.

What about global reach, permanence and "newspapers" picking up the stories for cheap entertainment?

I guess what I'm asking is, at it's core, it's just gossip, but at what point does it cross the line? Where is that line? Because it's easy to say any gossip is crossing the line, but then complaining about a bad driver is exactly that: gossip about an anonymous party. Those "OH" tweets become just as bad. Which is why I ask: where do we draw that line?

it's possible that diane sues that guy for sexual harrasment? he already confessed...

Please stop attempting to have "private" conversations in public at a volume level where others can easily overhear you.

But if you are around people that do, please don’t tweet it.

Why should my actions be limited by the wishes of inconsiderate people?

That depends whether you want to repay inconsiderate behavior with inconsiderate behavior or not.

Well, gee, that's an awfully good question there, Mike. I dunno, I'm just spitballin' here -- I guess maybe you'd want to try to show that you're in some way better than them? Nah, of course not, what a ridiculous notion that'd be.

An interesting notion, but not one I'm particularly prone to.

Such candor is remarkable in this dissipated age. Don't get me wrong -- judging by what I've seen of you on HN, I'm quite glad I don't know you socially. But your forthrightness here is impressive nonetheless.

I think it's funny that everybody's defending the people whose conversations were being tweeted, even though that group includes people who abuse flight attendants for no good reason and people who shout their breakups from the rooftop for everybody to hear, but simply stating that maybe such behavior doesn't deserve respect gets this awesome passive-aggressive "I'm quite glad I don't know you socially" business.

To be clear, I'm quite nice to people who deserve it, and to people who haven't shown anything either way (i.e. I am nice to strangers whose personalities I simply do not know). All I'm saying is that I feel no need to accommodate jerks. It's strange that society has conditioned us so strongly that such an obvious statement is seen as shocking.

I generally don't care if you're talking at the next table over and I can hear what you say, although I'm happy to be entertained by it if it's amusing. However, I think it's idiotic to be at that next table over and then be shocked, shocked that the information you're broadcasting is actually being received by other people.

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