
Please stop live tweeting people’s private conversations - joosters
https://medium.com/i-m-h-o/fcc6956937fa
======
brohoolio
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.

~~~
chromanoid
Thank you!

------
ohyes
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.

~~~
chromanoid
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." -.-

~~~
jasonlotito
You consider crying over a cheating lover bad behavior?

~~~
chromanoid
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.

~~~
jasonlotito
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.

~~~
chromanoid
Since when is dirty laundry exclusively about bad behavior? (see
[http://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/dirty%20laundry](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](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6827823)
(edit) or
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6827673](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6827673)

~~~
jasonlotito
> 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.

------
Atroxide
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.

~~~
ugexe
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?

~~~
Atroxide
This IS identifying someone...

------
iamben
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?

~~~
aaronem
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.

------
systemtrigger
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?

~~~
chromanoid
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...](http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131029/18020225059/mike-
rogers-you-cant-have-your-privacy-violated-if-you-dont-know-about-it.shtml))

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!

------
badman_ting
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.

------
waterlion
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.

------
ryguytilidie
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.

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

~~~
mikeash
I imagine it to be _quite_ effective education, personally.

~~~
chromanoid
Groupthink is not a good educator.

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

~~~
chromanoid
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.

------
danso
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?

~~~
joosters
> _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.

~~~
danso
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!"?

~~~
joosters
(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...

~~~
danso
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?)

~~~
joosters
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.

~~~
danso
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.

------
mildtrepidation
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.

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

~~~
iamben
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) :-)

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

~~~
iamben
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?"

~~~
mikeash
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.

~~~
iamben
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 :-)

------
chromanoid
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.

------
mmuro
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.

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

------
gpickett00
Ironic that you're asking people to stop live tweeting conversations, then you
link to said conversations and give them more pageviews.

------
yetanotherphd
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?

------
nichochar
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?

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

~~~
Atroxide
what? People talking in public places have privacy?

~~~
parallelist
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?

~~~
mikeash
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.

~~~
chromanoid
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.

~~~
mikeash
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?

~~~
chromanoid
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.

~~~
mikeash
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.

~~~
chromanoid
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?

~~~
mikeash
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.

~~~
chromanoid
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.

~~~
mikeash
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.

~~~
chromanoid
@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"?

~~~
mikeash
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.

~~~
chromanoid
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=6827715)
&
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6827592](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6827592)

------
randallsquared
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.

~~~
chromanoid
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.

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

~~~
vezzy-fnord
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.

------
jasonlotito
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.

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

~~~
jasonlotito
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?

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

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

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

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

~~~
aaronem
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.

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

~~~
aaronem
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.

~~~
mikeash
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.

