
Unidentified Plane-Bae Woman’s Statement Confirms the Worst - rsgoheen
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/07/unidentified-plane-bae-womans-statement-confirms-the-worst/565139/?single_page=true
======
sorenjan
I hate how everything has to be public nowadays. If you do something silly or
embarrassing you need to take into account that everybody have cameras with
them at all times, and enough people have no qualms about posting others
private moments online for the world to see. I'm a private person, I don't
want videos or pictures of me available for everyone. To be constantly
surrounded by internet connected cameras definitely makes me less likely to
risk look like an ass, even among friends.

~~~
imh
>Somehow, after all of this, fans of the thread still remained adamant that no
wrong had been committed. “We do it everyday to celebrities. No difference.
Outrage culture is so dumb,” wrote one Instagram user below a BuzzFeed News
post on the story.

It does seem no different from what society seems to be ok with towards
celebrities. I have always been uncomfortable with the idea that because
someone is on a TV show, society is ok having photographers follow them around
24/7 and reporting on their personal lives.

We have set a poor precedent.

~~~
untog
There are a great many celebrities whose lives are still private. They simply
don't play the game: don't have social media, don't arrange for paparazzi to
"catch" them leaving a nightclub, or invite a magazine through the doors of
their house.

So it seems the confusion is two fold. People believing that their access to
celebrity lives are anything other than arranged PR opportunities, and then
believing everyday people should be subject to that incorrectly interpreted
behaviour.

~~~
spinach
At your first point, this is really only true for celebs like Paris Hilton who
make their money through appearances and are famous for being famous, but a
lot of celebrities have paparazzis following them around all day, everyday and
certainly don't want it. Just google "paparazzi kristen stewart" too see how
much she abhors it and how invasive it is in her life.

------
lkrubner
If you disrupt someone's career, or their personal life, to advance your own
career and fame, then you are certainly liable for damages, in the normal
legal sense, unless you can prove public interest. If the targeted woman had
been an elected politician, it might be possible to prove public interest, but
in this case, public interest, in the legal sense, seems unlikely. And Blair
has already admitted she did this to advance her career:

\-----------------

 _“I’m an actress, comedian and a writer and so is my dude. Also if anyone
wants to send us plane tickets we are more than happy to try and find your
very own #PlaneBae,” she tweeted, before asking for a job at BuzzFeed. Brands
also jumped into the fray, as brands are wont to do. Alaska Airlines called
what Blair did a “good deed” and offered her a free flight. T-Mobile offered
Blair free Wi-Fi._

\---------------------

------
ljm
I feel like modern tech and social media are exposing just how little we
respect boundaries, as a culture and a society. This is a huge violation but
it happens all the time.

It’s terrifying, and because those whose boundaries are violated quite rightly
choose to stay anonymous, you only hear the projection from those who have
deluded themselves into thinking they’re doing good, despite the fact it was
never asked for.

There are good deeds and then pure sociopathy; ego massaging, narcissism...I
have to wonder how much envy was involved in that.

This isn’t about losing privacy in public, it’s respecting the fucking
boundaries. People need their space, they don’t need others leeching from it
to benefit themselves.

~~~
Confusion
There's no need to lay the blame at 'culture' and 'society'. The problem is
that you only need a thousand assholes in the million that read your story to
cause major problems. Even in the most amazing culture and society you may
expect 1 in a 1000 to be an asshole.

I think most humans are reasonable people. Many are even great people, no
matter how much you may disagree with them about many small things. The
problem is just the 1 asshole in a 1000 that has an outsized influence.

~~~
projektir
The effect of these things is often significant due to how poorly managed some
channels are, though. And it's not always due to large size, it happens in
schools all the time and we call it bullying.

For instance, this kind of thing could affect your job and lose you your job,
which shouldn't actually be a thing, and we should ask why is this a thing or
why is this a problem?

Consider SWATting, it only works because there's a framework in place to make
it work.

Why are threats effective?

A lot of this is preexisting problems that manifest in bullying and stalking
and frankly they're not handled very well, the victim often has little to no
recourse. So it more seems like we do not have good solutions to these issues,
socially OR legally.

~~~
ghaff
>For instance, this kind of thing could affect your job and lose you your job,
which shouldn't actually be a thing, and we should ask why is this a thing or
why is this a problem?

The issue is that, in times past, if you said something stupid and unfunny in
a bar with some friends on a Saturday night, probably no one would even
remember it in the morning. Today, if you're unlucky, there's at least some
finite possibility that for certain types of things, it will end up on
YouTube, your company is being DDOSd, your company hashtag is being flooded
with demands for your firing, there are news stories about you, and the path
of least resistance is for your company to announce that you are no longer
with them. I'm not sure what law prevents that from happening.

~~~
projektir
I'm saying the issue here is how affected you are by something like losing
your job, and how likely it is to happen.

> the path of least resistance is for your company to announce that you are no
> longer with them.

This is kind of the issue. There's no room for reasonable discourse, or taking
a risk.

Realistically, someone saying something about you on social media should be
uninteresting, and a company shouldn't have to worry about that as much, but
things got crooked and somehow it makes sense for a company to be very jumpy
about these things. That doesn't actually make sense, and we should examine
how we got here. This is not the only place this shows up, a similar problem
is it being very difficult for someone to get a job if they had a criminal
offense.

------
coldcode
Besides the disgusting nature of this "stunt", having commercial entities like
the Alaska Airlines and T-Mobile is where the disgust really goes up the
scale, a good deed - really? Can I record the CEO of Alaska Airlines' family
in their backyard and broadcast it widely on Twitter, is that a good deed? No,
it isn't.

~~~
sorokod
No - not a good deed, but very educational.

------
jokoon
What is weird is that there doesn't look like any law was broken, does it?

I was arguing with a female friend who strongly argues that people have the
right to their own image, so it should be forbidden to take picture of them.
On the other hand, when you go into a public place, you should be photographed
because it is a matter of freedom of speech: we should be able to record
people committing crimes or felonies.

I guess that it should be illegal to record people without their knowledge, if
they are not committing any crime, meaning as long as the person recording is
not doing it for legal or investigative purposes.

But to be honest, the problem to me, again, is how people behave online and
how they gang with each others. Harassing, doxxing, and insulting people
online should have consequences. It's really bad that people will write things
online they might never say in front of people.

There is always a grey area about what you can do and not do about data that
has other people in it. The internet has not been a good thing for privacy.

~~~
ghaff
It depends on the jurisdiction (2 party consent vs. 1 party, etc.). It depends
if there was an "expectation of privacy." It depends if the image or video is
being used for a commercial purpose like advertising. [ADDED: I'm mostly
discussing the US here.]

This case is probably questionable but, to your point, if I take a picture of
you canoodling in a public park I'm perfectly within my rights to publish that
image so long as it's not for marketing or advertising purposes (if people are
recognizable).

~~~
masklinn
> This case is probably questionable but, to your point, if I take a picture
> of you canoodling in a public park I'm perfectly within my rights to publish
> that image so long as it's not for marketing or advertising purposes (if
> people are recognizable).

It depends on the jurisdiction.

Mainland europe tends to have pretty strong personality rights, especially
(but not solely) for non-public persons (e.g. people who aren't politicians or
athletes or stars or more generally in the public consciousness).

And in many countries there you would _not_ be within your rights to publish a
specific image of a couple "canoodling in a public park". You would if you
were taking a picture of something else entirely (e.g. a crowd, a public
event, a landmark or monument) and they just happened to be in the frame, but
not if they were the subject.

~~~
ghaff
My bad. I was specifically referring to the US which indeed tends to tilt more
toward freedom of speech/press vs. privacy rights than many other countries
do.

------
pavel_lishin
> _“We do it everyday to celebrities. No difference. Outrage culture is so
> dumb,” wrote one Instagram user below a BuzzFeed News post on the story._

I don't think this commenter understands that celebrities _choose_ to put
themselves in the spotlight.

~~~
SideburnsOfDoom
> celebrities choose to put themselves in the spotlight.

It does not follow that e.g. if your day job is singing or acting, that you
want people to interrupt you and take photos when you are eating in a
restaurant, or discuss your relationships in a tabloid. Many would view it as
an unfortunate side-effect of the job, or worse.

~~~
masklinn
> Many would view it as an unfortunate side-effect of the job, or worse.

It is somewhat unfortunate, but it's also well-understood, as you start
working to get into these spaces you _know_ it's a significant risk especially
if you're aiming for the more popular kind of public act[0].

And that's not a recent phenomenon either, public performers have had
significantly lowered expectations of privacy… ever since the concept has
existed really.

What I mean to say is: if you're an artist, you're aware that this shit is a
risk, and you can act to mitigate it, and it's a pain and tiring but at least
it's that. And if you know dealing is not an option, you take a different path
or take care to hide your identity early on (à la Banksy) or use some other
means of separating a public persona and a more discrete private one.

If you're a rando, the expectation is _not_ that you're going to be made
"famous" for mundane actions, it's not a side-effect or your career and
benefits, and you're basically hosed.

[0] Dave Chambers / Blindboy Boatclub can probably expect less intrusiveness
into their private life and actions than Beyonce or Chris Pratt

~~~
darkerside
Do you think that was always the expectation? In a few short years, if the
current path continues, we'll have an "expectation" that random people have
just as little right to privacy. This seems to fall into the same boat as, if
I don't stand up for others (in this case, celebrities, who are still people,
no matter how envious we may be of them), then who will stand up for me?

~~~
wpietri
It has been an expectation at least since Mark Twain, who courted and reveled
in public attention: [https://www.thedailybeast.com/americas-first-modern-
celebrit...](https://www.thedailybeast.com/americas-first-modern-celebrity)

But I don't think there's any slippery slope there. People who aggressively
court public attention should expect to receive public attention. People who
don't generally shouldn't. (The exception for me being people who willfully
harm others.)

~~~
darkerside
Mark Twain seems like a different breed; a man who could certainly give as
good as he got. He didn't court public attention (solely) for the rewards of
fame, but because he was whip smart and wanted to engage.

Compare that to Michael Jackson or Britney Spears (or any number of artists up
and down the sliding scale of celebrity). Sure, they wanted to engage with the
world through their music and their art, but I don't think they defined
themselves as people solely through their craft, and I think (opinion) it
should have been their right to determine on what channels they publicly
engaged with the world. Not legally, but as a matter of common decency.

Or does everyone who e.g. publishes open source software deserve to be doxxed?

~~~
wpietri
I think there's a big difference between releasing some open-source software
and setting out to profit from being a public figure.

Michael Jackson and Britney Spears put themselves front and center. But J.D.
Salinger, for example, didn't. I think the former don't really get to complain
that people are interested in the product they are selling. Scientists are
another good example here. Carl Sagan clearly sought celebrity (and used it
very well). Plenty of Nobel Prize winners didn't.

I also agree "wanting to engage" is an important part of it. Steve Bannon
clearly likes being in the public eye, while Stephen Miller doesn't. But both
of them are seeking to shape the lives of millions, and so to my mind are
legitimate focuses of public attention.

~~~
darkerside
I think that line is blurrier than we engineers might often want to admit.
What's the difference in the end? Money? A legal contract with stipulations?

I think the core of my question is this. You agree we have a right to choose
whether we want to engage with the public. Do we have a fine-grained right to
engage in one area of life, but not others?

Historically, I think this has been the case (e.g. keeping family out of
politics), but I think the line is blurring over time, and I'm not sure that's
a good thing.

~~~
wpietri
I think it depends a lot on the manner of engagement and the area of life.
Most pop stars don't just sell music. They sell themselves as personalities,
as icons. This is often true about politicians as well. Much less so for
authors and software developers, though; there, what they're offering is
generally the work, not themselves.

I think keeping family out of politics is not so much about keeping one area
of the public figure's life private as allowing the family members to keep
their own lives private. Maybe that line is blurring, but I'm not sure the
public is entirely to blame. Politicians often use families as props and even
shields, as when the wife literally stands by a philandering politician in the
apology press conference. And the Trump administration has actively involved
the whole family in governing. So I'm not sure I'd lay changes here at the
feet of social media.

------
wallflower
I fear we are all one misstep away from going viral for all the wrong reasons.
In a world where people die taking ill-advised selfies and YouTube is glutted
with pranking videos that all try to one up each other, it seems that exposure
and attention is the new currency. The problem is that they can use and
discard you if you are doing something that fits their narrative for
attention.

And then you have online mobs. With wildfire falsehoods. For example, people
were killed in India because of false rumors spread on WhatsApp:

[https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2018/07/02/asia/india-lynching-
whats...](https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2018/07/02/asia/india-lynching-whatsapp-
intl/index.html)

------
shp0ngle
The lesson of the story: don't say anything publicly to anyone ever, because
everyone around has a camera in their pocket and is way too hungry for
internet points.

~~~
matz1
It's the opposite, be as public as much as you can. If your life already
mostly public, the incident like this likely won't hurt you much.

~~~
sixstringtheory
So can I walk around in my birthday suit now?

------
gfodor
What would the game theoretic outcome be if this kind of thing were
facilitated at scale by an AI? Ie, imagine a world where your chance of being
globally exposed like this was a non-trivial measure due to ever present AI
generating memes based on public human behaviors? I wonder if the end result
is a society wide abandonment of "fan in" [1] capable media like Twitter.

[1] [https://codahale.com/fan-in/](https://codahale.com/fan-in/)

~~~
taneq
Lower risk, I'd think, than now. There's only room for a few concurrent big
memes on the internet, and the risk of becoming one of those is split among
all of the people exposed to it. AI generating an increased flood of it would
just increase the noise.

------
zamalek
Blair has posted a public apology.[1] It's arguably self-serving and there are
people defending her actions. This whole situation is what is wrong with
social media; refined and concentrated.

[1]:
[https://mobile.twitter.com/roseybeeme/status/101671128167022...](https://mobile.twitter.com/roseybeeme/status/1016711281670225927)

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

~~~
ghaff
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.)

~~~
blahblahblogger
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.

------
ebbv
Isn’t kinda the point of her statement that she isn’t unidentified? She was
made famous by somebody else without her knowledge and consent.

When a production crew wants to use footage of you in a show they have to get
you to sign a release. There probably needs to be some form of this for online
exposure as well. What form that would take is a difficult question.

~~~
paidleaf
> She was made famous by somebody else without her knowledge and consent.

She was made famous by the attention-seeking couple, her "plane boyfriend" and
the exploitive media.

It's amazing how such a nonstory was milked by everyone for publicity and
profit. And the theatlantic is still going at it.

If the poor woman wants privacy, how about theatlantic stop writig about the
"Plane-Bae Woman"? How about focus on the couple who "set her up" to gain
media following? How about focus on the "plane boyfriend" who knew about the
couple filming them and used that for publicity by appearing all over TV and
hinting that the unsuspecting woman had sex with him in the plane bathroom (
probably because the producer told him they needed juicy story from him ).

Or most importantly, how about the atlantic shine a light on itself and the
media which turn a non-story into a major story because they need to exploit
everything and everyone for money?

The story should be on everyone but the woman and yet the title is "Plane-Bae
Woman".

And the atlantic is lying when they say "unidentified" woman when the
"boyfriend" identified her and the media spent an entire week exploiting this
woman and this story.

Instead of "Unidentified Plane-Bae Woman...", how about "Everything Wrong with
the Media and Attention Seeking People"? Put the focus on the problem, not the
victim.

~~~
ghaff
And while they're at it, I hope there have been consequences, if only some
serious soul searching, for the Alaska Air and T-Mobile PR people who
apparently jumped on this.

~~~
SlowRobotAhead
While I agree it’s really awful for the “legitimate” companies to jump on this
- in reality it wasn’t a boardroom decision, it was some millennial they put
in charge of the twitter account who has been raised with the same lack of
awareness and social respect as the clowns that recorded it to begin with.

~~~
ghaff
Yes. That's one reason I wouldn't be calling for anyone's head over it. As you
suggest, it's probably one or more young, inexperienced PR/social media people
at those companies who thought they were doing something clever. I'd much
rather these and other companies take it as an opportunity to reconsider their
actions and put better policies in place rather than firing someone so as to
be seen as "doing something."

------
awinder
Seinfeld and Galifianakis had an interesting chat in Comedians in Cars Getting
Coffee about privacy & fame. What I took from it is that people broadly have
different privacy expectations and even would label the same settings as
public vs. private. Anyways, I was already thinking about that conversation,
but it’s even more interesting to see it played down to the level of any
random person.

------
stevew20
This is why I support physical violence! If more people were to also follow
this mantra, it would immunize all of us from assholes who seek to ruin our
lives on the way to fame.

~~~
qbrass
They can use violence too. And since you okayed, it. They're justified in
posting pictures of you lying bloodied in the street, saying karma's a bitch.

------
lostmsu
How about we drop that sort of privacy altogether? It is only a problem
because people are taught to keep their personal lives personal.

~~~
nicwolff
OK – you first! Everything you do or say in public will now be documented and
that documentation easily searchable under your real name. Have a nice day!

~~~
lmm
I grew up in a village, where effectively everyone knew everything everyone
else had done in public.

It wasn't the best, but it was ok.

~~~
sovok_x
Village is a close-knit community where everyone else may easily punish you if
you abuse the system of communal knowledge. In a wider world people can abuse
it but won't get any consequences at all because of enormous resources needed
to monitor for relatively minor things. So the example is quite irrelevant.

~~~
prepend
I grew up in a village and I think it was worse. Every mistake and misstep was
known by all. Prejudices existed before you were born and couldn’t be escaped.
“Close knit community” is a nice wa my of saying lots of busybody assholes
(and also some kind and caring folks too).

There was a whole different set of pressure and I’d take internet shaming over
not being able to live in certain areas or date certain people any day.

~~~
sovok_x
I empathise with your emotion but that has more to do with how closed groups
work, local culture and basic human nature. It's not about abuse of
uncontrollable information flow. Try to leak some villager's "public secrets"
to "outsiders" while still living in the village and see for yourself what
will happen to you.

~~~
prepend
Interestingly, there was a complex set of layers about what secrets were
leakable (“Betsy is a whore when drunk”) vs not (“Joe is a pedarast and don’t
let your kids be alone with him.”).

But my point is that villages suck too. I voted with my feet over the problems
of a giant crowd of people potentially knowing your business, vs a small group
always knowing your business and constantly interfering.

~~~
sovok_x
And I don't judge the choice. But implying that by switching one problem for
another makes either of them not worthy of solving or considering on its own,
because the other seems bigger, just feels wrong.

------
ArtWomb
So she's retained counsel and preparing to file a suit? Against whom? $TWTR?

The only viable strategy in the current media saturated clime is to embrace
the attention. Every human on earth now possesses a mobile news studio in
their pocket. There is no such thing as bad publicity for your own personal
brand. If caught with your pants down. Put it in your bio. And re-invent
yourself as the #planebae matchmaker offering services at a discounted rate
for followers!

There is another viral media piece today about the discovery in Mythic Ireland
by dronespotters. Circulating around the hashtag #NewHenge. It's the discovery
of a lifetime. Has spread around the world in a matter of days. And will
probably result in eternal archaeological renown for the finders on a Heinrich
Schliemann level of glory. Or at least, they'll never have to buy a pint in
County Meath for the rest of their lives.

There is no hiding from the World anymore. Just embrace your own true
authentic self.

~~~
chrisseaton
> Against whom?

Against the woman who posted the Tweets, I would imagine? Perhaps also against
the companies which encouraged it, like T-Mobile?

~~~
zaphar
I wonder if a lawsuit alleging sander and line would apply here. I actually
hope that the couple and the news organizations who started the whole thing
get sued.

~~~
cbr
Are they saying they were misquoted? I'm seeing them unhappy about the
publicity, but that's not slander.

~~~
zaphar
No, But the lady they exploited is saying that they misrepresented her for
their own benefit. I think I would be tempted to sue them for slander if I
were her.

