In the photography community, taking street photos of people without their permission is a source of controversy. Some people on the extremes feel it’s never acceptable, but most photographers agree that being respectful is the key, as well as always deleting photos if someone asks.
One of my personal stances is that I’ll never photograph someone who is in a compromised position, e.g. a drunk person stumbling out of a bar, or a homeless person sleeping on the street. This seems like the bare minimum in terms of respect and human decency.
It’s pretty disheartening to see these kinds of TikTok trends just blow through these kinds of ethical concerns and norms. I’ve already worried at times that poorly behaving street photographers are going to make it harder for most photographers to continue their work. I don’t even know what to say about trends like this one. It’s one of the many reasons that I’m convinced humans are not capable of using certain forms of social media in a healthy way. Our brains are not equipped for it.
If you’re doing some kind of documentary work, like showing how a city is being affected by a drug or a major homelessness problem, photographing someone in that group is basically necessary, but taking the photo just to take it does feel like it’s crossing a line, so it’s hard. This definitely feels like it’s crossing the line, and really reminds me of the movie Nope, making a spectacle of something that shouldn’t be.
I lean towards the point of view of "most photographers" in the original parent comment, in that you need to always be respectful of the subject but there are cases you can't get permission beforehand, and so yes I think in general you should ask for permission to take a photo of someone, but sometimes it's either not possible, for example if someone is high on Tranq, or will create the wrong conditions for the photo you want to take, like if you wanted a candid shot of someone on the street. My view is that in the former, you should have a legitimate reason to take the photo (like you're doing documentary work as mentioned), and in the latter you should ask for permission and delete if rejected, but it's fine to do it after the fact.
Yeah, documentary work is still really important and that’s one of the few exceptions that makes sense to me. Since I’m not doing that kind of work, I steer clear.
This was my first reaction as well, but after thinking about it more I wonder why my brain went to “these people need to stop” instead of “we should address what they’re filming.” Maybe because the problem feels unsolvable and difficult to assign blame, but it’s easy to blame tiktokers. There’s probably some fallacy in here somewhere.
Documentaries often have agendas that are at odds with their subject. If you can't show drug users in their worst light should you also not be able to show politicians in their worst light?
> I wonder why my brain went to “these people need to stop” instead of “we should address what they’re filming.”
IMHO we should go for both at the same time. In a society that deems itself developed, there should not be homeless people shooting up drugs on the street, and in a society that deems itself civilized, there should not be internet-randoms filming and publicly showing people who are clearly suffering.
The latter should be left to actual journalists who at least usually take care about some basic privacy-preserving mechanisms (e.g. blurring faces and identifiable tattoos).
Any content creator can treat their subjects with respect. These ones do not.
While I agree that this is bad, I feel like we as a society have allowed the divergence of journalism and integrity. Anyone can proclaim themselves a journalist and that enables this.
There's a complex issue at play here - the evolution of media and laws that have lagged behind. Laws should be doing something to address the reach of this type of media and the integrity of their creators.
I think it's pretty straightforward, everyone knows those people need help, the government also likely has programs aiming to try to resolve the issue.
On the other hand, these "tranq tourists" are just causing more trouble for the sake of social media clout.
They're showing up and paying people to be filmed shooting up, thus encouraging the shooting up further. People high on the drug are being recorded being asked highly personal things when in a state where they cannot properly consent, thus likely only exacerbating the issues that caused them to rely on drugs by adding more embarassment.
Plus, since it's being done for clout, like many other TikTok trends, it'll continue to escalate in extremeness until something more drastic happens.
* encouraging tranq use by paying users of tranq
* adding embarrassment to users of tranq
It seems like paying someone else to take an illegal substance is as prosecutable as purchasing the drug yourself, maybe even more if the person paid is not able to consent.
I wonder why the municipality is not arresting people for this activity.
Interestingly: Tranq is not a federally controlled substance. That means it’s not deemed illegal to use by itself under federal law. You can get it with a veterinarian’s prescription.
I'm eating a bagel while I type this. Whether or not you pay to record me eating a bagel won't change how much bagel eating I'm doing. You're not forcing me. You're paying me to do something I was already doing.
You still give them an incentive to do more, in a more extreme fashion, while funding their habit, offering nothing positive in return, sensationalising their plight, and profiting off their mental issues.
I hope for your sake you will never be in a position where people can exploit you like that.
The trouble these people cause is violating any shred of decency that the film subjects have. No one, no matter how fucked up their life is, should end up on the global media stage without their consent. Just think about that:
Would you like to be filmed while high out of your mind or being covered in feces as a result of loss of bowel control due to drug effects? And all of that being distributed to millions of people in an instant? Probably not.
Economically, the fact that all these streamers operate in a sort-of legal grey zone also disadvantages legitimate journalists and (documentary) moviemakers who actually go through all the trouble to make legally sound material (e.g. obtaining proper sign-offs, not paying people to hit up).
Not sure what the legal situation is in the US, but in many European countries, publishing a photo of anybody without their permission is not legal.
There’s obviously exceptions, and it matters whether the person is incidental to the composition or the primary subject of it, but I think that’s a pretty good approach as a default.
Depends on the number of people in the photo. And on whether you can identify the face of the person in the photo. E.g. recently when many people used facemasks that made a lot of photos of them legal to publish. And if there is a crowd of people, e.g. 10 people, then you can publish even with the faces visible.
I'm most familiar with that in Germany, where it's completely prohibited to publish somebody's photograph without their consent (which can be implied, e.g. by receiving payment or posing for a photo, or explicitly given), for both the press and general public, whether for commercial, personal, or journalistic purposes.
On a related note, it's still quite jarring for me to read the full name of perpetrators, victims, or witnesses involved in more or less newsworthy events in American media – the culture and (informed by that) law around what personal information is considered acceptable to be published is very different.
On an EU level, this concept even goes as far as being explicitly confirmed as a "right to be forgotten", which has implications for e.g. web search engines.
On the other hand, that table heavily clashes with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_rights at a first glance, e.g. for Greece ("no consent required for taking a photo" vs. "Taking a picture of a person in a public space: Requires consent."), so I'd take it with a large grain of salt and not consider it legal advice.
Photography as an art form has a much longer history than short form video, and has had time for the back and forth on these kinds of issues. Short form video is still relatively new. I feel like this is a “give it time” situation. Society will push back and norms will emerge just like they have with photographers.
Reminded of https://news.yahoo.com/controversial-irl-streamer-returns-ja... ; one does not simply violate social norms in Japan. It's not Singapore or China in terms of repression, but nor is it somewhere you want to come to the attention of the police.
people will keep stooping to lower and lower levels for views, likes, etc. If it gets them money in the end there will be people who will try to grab it.
Visibility can help solve a problem, but once you are at a certain level of visibility and your problem is not solved, more visibility isn't going to solve it.
If that is so, then the problem is that people refuse to see that certain cultures are incompatible with each other, and so the solution is them coming to terms with that and adjusting their worldview accordingly.
I think you've misread what I said. The "Why can't people play nicely?" people would just have to accept that certain cultures cannot play nicely with each other.
To address your point: there are plenty of people in history that survived as tributaries or colonies.
The article seems to say that permission has been given and that the subjects are getting paid (as low as $5). It suggests that they might be too high/wasted to give consent which brings in the ethical angle.
It's exploitation and is like many other things in society.
I think act of asking for permission here is the problem, regardless of whether or not it’s been given.
In other words, even if someone says yes (to say nothing of their capacity to consent, to your point), the act of asking in the first place is worthy of rebuke, IMO.
In some countries, Japan for instance, it's illegal to film people without their permission. Exceptions are made for crowds and of course most people don't prosecute, especially if they don't notice, but it is illegal.
Tangentially related, it's interesting to go to a Japanese trade show, a place where it would seem like their entire motivation is to show stuff off, and yet you'll see booths saying "no photography".
Many nightclubs and parties have rules against photos to avoid embarrassment, and they can do this because they are private.
But when people decide to behave indecently in public places, then I don’t think those sorts of norms should apply. An inebriated person on the street has decided to accept that people will see them in a compromising situation. Ofc publishing photos expands the scale of how many people see them in this situation, but that doesn’t change the fact that they choose to let people see them this way. It is good for society that people are aware of problems, and taking photos is the best way to communicate the reality of the problem.
However I don’t think Paparazzi should be allowed to harass people, because they take photos of people living normal lives. There isn’t any benefit to society to share such photos.
> But when people decide to behave indecently in public places, then I don’t think those sorts of norms should apply.
Why should they not apply? The more unfortunate aspects of the human condition haven't changed very much throughout history, and only recently is it possible to make a poor decision that may be the laughingstock of millions of people tomorrow. If anything, the social media landscape makes those sorts of norms more important than they’ve ever been.
> An inebriated person on the street has decided to accept that people will see them in a compromising situation.
An inebriated person by definition isn’t making that decision knowingly. And that’s the point of a stance towards decency. When someone is in a compromised state and unable to fully take care of themselves, it seems especially shitty to take advantage of them in that state.
I’m not saying that being publicly intoxicated is something that deserves no concern. But taking photos/videos and/or publicly shaming people isn’t the answer.
Picture yourself on your worst day. A day that you would strongly prefer never happened. And ask yourself if it’s helping anything if people record you and turn you into social media fodder.
Theres a moral/ethical bankruptcy at the center of this.
You are assuming that addicts have no agency, which as a former addict I reject. It is a pernicious idea because it feeds into beliefs of hopelessness. I’m not saying their choice is easy, but they have a choice.
I wish I had footage of me on my worst day. I would prefer it not be broadcast, but I would accept that my public actions are public.
I’m not assuming there’s no agency. I’m saying that they are operating in a compromised state.
As a former addict, you should know well the steep hill to climb to exert any kind of control. My point is that people get stuck in very unfortunate situations, often for reasons more complex than any of us can understand. Addiction is not something to ridicule, and compassion seems the most ideal baseline.
And I appreciate your personal perspective on this, but don’t think it confers much to the appropriateness of recording other people who don’t share your views.
“isn’t making that decision knowingly” suggests a lack of agency. Being compromised doesn’t remove your choices, it just makes them harder.
Treating addicts like automatons stuck in a loop isn’t helpful. It seems to be the leading belief in the west, and we all know addiction problems are getting worse, especially in the US. This belief is baseless and unhelpful, and needs to be discarded.
> This belief is baseless and unhelpful, and needs to be discarded.
Based on what? I’m not saying that every addicted person is a helpless automaton, but people are often subject to factors over which they have no control, and some instances of addiction are indeed close to someone being stuck in a loop until someone from the outside can intervene.
This is why criminalization or ignoring the problem is so problematic. Many of these people need psychological help and supportive treatment.
I’d also suggest that many of these people have fallen into a form of learned helplessness. In this state, they don’t actually believe they can do anything to change the situation, and so their brains never muster the will to do so. This is a well studied phenomena and I’d recommend the book “Learned Optimism” by Martin Seligman which explores the original research and discovery of Learned Helplessness.
It’s a phenomena that is highly relevant to addiction, and “they should just try harder” isn’t a realistic stance.
> An inebriated person on the street has decided to accept that people will see them in a compromising situation.
Not necessarily. At the very least the person may have been drugged against their will - it happens, even if it's not the majority of cases. Then there are many grey situations like addicts who are homeless. Given the possibility, a share of these people would likely choose not to be homeless, not to be addicted, or to be neither.
Taking a photo or a video of a person in a vulnerable situation when they can't protect themselves is abusive and it is not OK, no matter what this person's behaviour was at that time. Your comment comes awfully close to blaming the victims.
Drug addicts are not drugged against their will. In fact they are drugged due to their will.
Homeless people may be victims of outside forces and we should support these people unconditionally. Some homeless are victims of their own bad decisions based on wrong beliefs and should be supported too, but let’s stop pretending they are being forced to take drugs.
This is an extremely simplistic assessment of addiction, and the factors that drive it.
Setting aside the likelihood and tangent that we probably don’t have free will the way we like to think of it, it’s incredibly reductionist to summarize two symptoms/outcomes (homelessness, addiction) this way without understanding the systemic factors that lead to them.
I’d highly recommend Anna Lembke’s work on Addiction. You’re boiling something very complex down to “shame on them”.
Thanks for the reference. Do you know if Lembke has had much success in treating addiction? That is how I usually filter authors like this, there is too much content and almost none of it actually helps addicts.
In my experience the mainstream view of addiction is harmful, so I feel the need to push back to help others who have fell into the trap of “it’s a disease so I don’t have a choice”. Of course I am simplifying, this is a comment thread and not a dissertation.
> Do you know if Lembke has had much success in treating addiction?
She is Chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic at Stanford University, and her writing is based on her clinical experience.
I became aware of her via her book Dopamine Nation, which is especially relevant here due to the book’s wider view of addictive behaviors and the role of social media. The book also helped me get through some of my own issues.
> Of course I am simplifying, this is a comment thread and not a dissertation.
The guidelines of this site strongly encourage curiosity and substance over generalizations and simplifications. “I don't have a choice” is one extreme, but there’s a wide spectrum of space to explore between that and “it’s their fault”.
I’d be cautious about just pushing back if you’re directing people towards a mindset that they should be able to just choose something else. This can be just as harmful. The person who doesn’t have the tools to work through their issues is driven to despair wondering what is so broken about them that they can’t overcome the problem. Getting help is often necessary.
She has a fancy title and clinical experience… but is there any evidence that her ideas produce more effective treatments than others? I know it’s a hard thing to study but there are tomes written about addiction, and I am yet to find an academic that has any unique insight in actually solving the problem.
I agree it is a complex issue, but in my experience the truth is closer to “you have a choice to change things” than “you are helpless.” I wouldn’t phrase it as “it’s your fault”, e.g. some people start drugs because their parents share with them in adolescence and that isn’t their fault. But ending it is their choice.
Maybe I am being too harsh in how I frame it. Frequent relapse can definitely lead to despair, but I honestly think the idea that “I don’t have a choice” causes more despair than the opposite.
I suspect that a lot (maybe even most?) people that start using drugs in adolescence or young adulthood are doing so because they have mental health issues that they don’t understand, and the drugs help them feel better.
> Do you know if Lembke has had much success in treating addiction? That is how I usually filter authors like this.
> I am yet to find an academic that has any unique insight in actually solving the problem.
It sounds like these two together indicate that your “filter” eliminates 100% of the authors on this topic. Are there any authors on the matter that you respect and might recommend?
I agree that there are plenty of unhelpful ideas about addiction. I'm not aware of any available sources where I can prove to you "here's her success rate", but again, I found her work directly applicable to my own addiction issues and reformulating some of my preconceived ideas and self-hatred that had been hammered into me from an early age and were actually part of my problem.
"I don't have a choice" is a straw man. "There are a myriad of factors I didn't choose that led to the circumstances of my addiction" is not a realization of helplessness, but an understanding of the systemic factors involved. Understanding this is critical to making the internal mental shifts necessary to actually break the cycle. Factors beyond one's control doesn't imply no choice is available. It just contextualizes the problem, and the resulting understanding can be an escape hatch.
I can't change the circumstances of my birth. I can't undo the childhood filled with complex trauma that left me seeking any kind of relief I could find. But understanding those factors means I can learn how to cope with them in better ways.
Thanks for the reply, I was grumpy yesterday and pushed back a bit hard, I think I understand your nuance of choice of continuing addiction vs choice of developing addiction now.
Out of interest, what addiction did she help you overcome?
It's all good. It's one of the harder facts of life to swallow: I didn't choose the factors that lead to this, but I still have to deal with them, and I'm the only person who can. True of many things in life.
I'd prefer not to add more unique data points to my HN profile for privacy reasons, but to speak in generalities, I've struggled with a variety of substances and behavioral loops since I was in my late teens stemming from that abusive background. I spent a lot of time pissed off at my parents, and later at myself for not "having the strength" to overcome these things on my own, while not understanding why I was drawn to them in the first place.
If the car is eating oil, something probably needs to be tuned up, so to speak.
I wasn't talking about addicts. Spiking is a thing. Being a victim of spiking puts one in an extremely vulnerable state, and filming someone in that state is abject, whether or not you are aware they've been spiked.
Nobody pretends that addicts are being forced to take drugs. However addiction is generally seen a a compulsion to consume. The key term here, compulsion, indicates an absence of choice (Merriam Webster [0] defines it as an "an irresistible persistent impulse to perform an act." If you can't resist, you're not deciding).
> I doubt even 0.01% of the people in this this thread are talking about spiking. That is a strawman.
At least two different people referenced spiking explicitly in their comments. There are 136 comments in this thread at the time of writing this one. That is a lot more than 0.01% of commenters.
Regardless, your original comment was "An inebriated person on the street has decided to accept that people will see them in a compromising situation." If you want the discussion to only concern addicts then it is better to say it explicitly than assume it's obvious.
> Your dictionary definition does not convince me that there is no decision been made, it is semantics.
Well the meaning of words matters. Addiction is defined or described as a compulsion. If you prefer, the WHO defines it as "the user (referred to as an addict) is periodically or chronically intoxicated, shows a compulsion to take the preferred substance (or substances), has great difficulty in voluntarily ceasing or modifying substance use, and exhibits determination to obtain psychoactive substances by almost any means." We can play semantics all day, but ultimately the words "great difficulty in voluntarily..." are pretty clear...
The studies I have seen show evidence that drink spiking with other drugs is rare with around 1% or less of reported cases. This is confirmed in the studies with toxin screening occurring only hours after the supposed ingestion.
When “spiking” does occur it always involves alcohol and mostly does not involve literal spiking but rather manipulating people who are already drinking to over drink either by pushing strong drinks and/or drinks with caffeine. Businesses take great advantage of this. If you’ve been to a casino or a strip club they are prime examples of it.
In my opinion, for the individual predator, all this seems much harder than just scanning the crowd looking for someone who has drank too much, no spiking involved at least not done by the predator, and then manipulating them into leaving with you.
You could make the case there are complicit bartenders making the drinks subtlety stronger than they should be, but who’s to say how strong the drink should be? Unless the bartender lies to you about how much alcohol they put in the drink then it’s up to them and their menu and it’s up to you to not have too many mixed drinks.
Alcohol serving businesses are economically incentivized to serve strong drinks with a mix to cover the taste of how strong it is. It’s why mixed drinks are on the menu and not just beer and straight liquor.
We’ve designed and marketed a legal product and social life that makes becoming inebriated and vulnerable as easy as it can possibly by way of mixed drinks and then we’ve sat back and watched people get taken advantage of and then pointed our fingers at “spiking” and “drugging”… sheesh give me a break
“Of the 97 alleged drink spiking cases included, there were only 9 plausible cases. We did not identify a single case where a sedative drug was likely to have been illegally placed in a drink in a pub or nightclub.”
“Our study did not reflect the current public perception of drink spiking. Drink spiking with sedative or illicit drugs appears to be rare. If drink spiking does occur, ethanol appears to be the most common agent used”
For seriously private events, security confiscate the phone and/or beat the perpetrator until they delete photos.
Talking about the photographers “rights” is an academic exercise. I’m not saying the reality is moral, I’m just explaining the reality as opposed to then ideal.
It seems common to tiktok, Instagram, and any other platform where the majority of the people are craving followers that this kind of behavior will be rampant. Once you commit to these platforms there will always be someone pushing the boundaries of decency and those will be elevated by the platform itself. The only game is not to play.
There is also some irony in the fact that a Chinese company is profiting from the drug trade and social problems caused in part by that same country. The drug trade by now is a decentralized and multi-hop production process of course and the USA certainly can't claim innocence either. But, it is fascinating.
These tiktokers are drug addicts. It just so happens that drug is dopamine they produce by exploiting people on social media instead of injecting chemicals.
It's interesting to me that the line between "this is important journalism" and "this is bad and we should stop it" seems to be arbitrary aesthetics around distribution medium and production style.
If this is bad, would it also be bad for NYT to film the same things and publish a piece about how bad the situation is, with ads?
You're really looking at this at a surface level. Instead of production style consider: consent (was that person in a good state to make decisions), main topic (this is addiction in general -vs- look at this addicted person), amount of context (did you learn about anything beyond "this person is addicted"). Production style has next to nothing to do with whether it's journalism.
This is not, and should not be, an important factor in journalistic reporting. Often, the most valuable stories are those which would never receive consent by the relevant parties.
> Addiction in general vs. the individual
I don't understand. We should treat the problem as a statistical one without a personal human element? Absolutely not. Plenty of reports abound on statistics, already. A garish front-line perspective could be exactly what saves some kid from walking down that path in the future and what motivates some community activists or politicians to effect meaningful changes in their community.
Consent of the victim. I don't care if someone doesn't consent to getting their crimes exposed. But if you started filming body damage the drug did to random people without asking them for consent, that would be a really shitty thing, even if informative in some way.
> We should treat the problem as a statistical one without a personal human element?
No, we shouldn't concentrate on specific people. This shouldn't be poverty porn. "There's an issue, here's an affected person who agreed to talk to us about it, here's more about the issue" - great personal element! "Look at this affected person, and this one, and this one, and this one, the end" - no, that's not reporting about the issue itself.
As far as I can tell, the concern is regarding drug users. As an ex-user and as an ex-homeless person
drug use is a choice. Every recovered addict will tell you the same thing. I'd conjecture there's as much victimization in the drug game as there is in the casino game. I don't care if someone is filmed pulling slots or buying lottery tickets in public. If someone's in a public space airing self-inflicted diseases and are filmed in an impaired state then being documented is payment for the price of poor decisions. There's no expectation of privacy in public.
Absolutely we should focus on individuals. This isn't pornography (for pleasure). It's a crisis. And, just like Palestine or Ukraine or Darfur, it should be documented and individual's experiences should be broadcasted. Hiding the problem isn't going to fix anything. Treating it like a class thing isn't going to fix anything - this issue crosses race and class. It's a human problem and requires human-human interactions.
> As an ex-user and as an ex-homeless person drug use is a choice.
Starting the drug use - sure. But do you think the same of people who are already physically addicted continuing use? And does it matter for the problem itself?
> Absolutely we should focus on individuals.
How much can you achieve here by focusing on every single affected person individually -vs- knowing this is a city wide issue and actually trying to hit the distributors since they seem to be so obvious, people can just switch the corner they go to? (according to the article)
> Starting the drug use - sure. But do you think the same of people who are already physically addicted continuing use? And does it matter for the problem itself?
Yes, I think if you're neck deep in a fentanyl and tranq addiction you're making a choice to continue using. That's evidenced by those who chose to stop using. And, yes, assigning responsibility correctly is important.
Note that drug treatment programs almost always require patients to accept responsibility for their outcomes. That's not just empty posturing. That's crucial to solving the problem.
> How much can you achieve...
You'll accomplish much more positive change by focusing on individuals suffering from drug use (that includes non-users). If cracking down on distribution did anything to solve addiction then we still be living in Prohibition and drugs wouldn't be more popular, dangerous, and addictive than ever. Cracking down on distribution only increases inequality measures (look at Mexico today and also the results of applying the "zero tolerance" policy to crack cocaine distributors in the 80s - the African American community is still reeling from heavy-handed administration and enforcement) and accelerates the arms race.
If the only distinction you see between this and NYT content is medium and production style, I'm more curious to know how you personally define important journalism.
There are some important differences related to consent and background info, but the high level criticism in TFA that "people are profiting by sharing imagery of fucked up drug users" is equally true of mainstream publications
It's important journalism to the extent that it disseminates information or raises awareness of important conditions or facts
It's a messy gray area to be sure. Both parties want more reach and more revenue, so let's set those incentives aside.
To me it seems that the worst accusation you can level at a news org like NYT is reaching for sensationalism and lurid "entertainment" to get clicks.
But they are a (subjectively) trusted/credible news institution. There is an underlying mission and set of shared journalistic values behind what they do, not to mention an editorial process. Through these things there is at least a nod towards accountability.
TikTok creators are not credible or trusted in the same sense, and they are under no obligation to a larger mission or set of norms, self-imposed or otherwise. They just want followers. With content like this, it seems they're doing the inverse of the NYT - they're reaching for credibility by creating content with the appearance of journalism.
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And to your point about consent, I'm sure there are people who did not or could not consent to their image being published. AFAIK there are no structures governing TikTok "journalism" that would prevent this sort of harm. For me, this is enough to totally disqualify this sort of thing as journalism.
The UN report on the Attention Economy quotes a study that says 0.5% of content produced is consumed by anyone and dropping.
Platforms don't advertise it and have created a totally absurd industry where the limits of Consumption has no impact on the limits of Production. So there is no journalism going on.
Content explodes and finite Attention fragments into smaller and smaller bits so Content Producers view counts stay up with ever diluting short lived impact.
Consumption is not being measured right. If the you get a single viewer who then goes and reads 50 other things you are really getting 1/50th of that view. Self serving content producers and platforms don't talk about it at all.
It's like watching home builders debating what they are building before the subprime meltdown.
You're not reading (the first sentence of) the report correctly.
> By the 2000s, so much information was being generated
worldwide that only a small fraction (0.5% in 2015) of the
digital data generated was being analyzed at all.
Information and its analysis is not equivalent to content and its consumption, nor can you extrapolate one from the other.
That you seem to use this as the sole basis for your conspiratorial findings that we're in a content bubble and "platforms don't advertise it" is unfortunate.
I think you are greatly over estimating how much impact analysis is having here. Not to mention skipping over the dilution and fragmentation of Attention (even of experts).
Journalism value lies more in surfacing data/info rather than analyzing it - an MRI tech might be able to observe and detect cancer before everyone else, but that doesn't mean they are qualified docs or cancer researchers. Or whatever they think needs to be highlighted really needs everyones attention. The platforms regularly waste everyone's time and energy.
Journos are in a similar position to the MRI tech and do call in experts to look at their data, but it all gets regularly drowned out by the info tsunami, plus experts usually need Time the more complex anything gets. The platforms profit from the expectation that what they promote, translates to action or solution instantly. And when it doesn't they don't indicate how much energy has been wasted.
The info flows have to change for more action and less unnecessary attention capture. The MRI techs are getting too much attention without an equivalent increase in lives saved.
>would it also be bad for NYT to film the same things and publish a piece about how bad the situation is, with ads?
Yes. Advertising, in which you pay someone to lie or exploit a fallacy (e.g. red wine associated with lower risk of cardiovascular disease), is the opposite of journalism. The idea that you should fund one with the other is frankly horrific.
Agree, laws also differ between you stopping when there's an accident to take photos (in Germany called "Gaffer" or "persistent looker") and a journalist taking pictures to inform about this event.
(Apparently there's been a new law, you can be fined for up to 2 years in prison for the first case, when you obstruct first aid workers and take pictures of dead people: https://www.bussgeldkatalog.org/gaffer/ )
> Why is it that so many people on HN seem totally unable to fathom the concept of "intent"?
Anytime there is a "why is HN like [x]" you need to stop and remember that this is a newsfeed on a tech startup incubator, and that it caters to people with certain points of view, education, and experiences.
think about that, what those are, and then revisit your question; it's not rocket science.
The focus seems entirely different. It’s not about shock value.
In any case, turning aside from the NYTimes specifically, of course aesthetics and context matters! That’s what photojournalism is!
The camera only ever captures fragments of reality, and then the publisher will place that content in a completely different context (you scrolling through your phone). Headlines, editing, narration, captions, preview images, and simply where and how you find it - that all puts the raw data into a story, a media experience. The same raw video file can be edited to to inflame disgust or inspire empathy.
I would disagree that's the main focus. It's good information supported by specific stories. The specific people there are: a person who got out and was happy to talk about it, a local tattoo artist who was talking about warning people and wasn't photographed/interviewed while drugged, and finally Kim who actually doesn't seem to provide much value. But that's still a small part next to the extra history, context, description of scope, information about helpers/volunteers, and a group photo which wouldn't be enough to identify the people in it.
> the main focus is on how fucked up a small number of specific people are
So no, I feel like we're looking at a completely different article. I don't see that as the focus at all.
I honestly don’t know what to tell you if you think these pieces are similar to random TikToks that are constructed to inspire horror and disgust.
Andrew Callaghan does some interesting work that focuses on lurid topics but with unexpected sensitivity. In his recent piece on San Francisco street crime and drug addiction, there’s a subplot about a TikToker who is popular with conservative media for condemning and confronting street people. He is loathed by the social services and healthcare workers.
"Brooke Peder’s leg was amputated after an infection from a tranq wound bore into the bone. She hopes to save her arm, although she reluctantly injects tranq in it."
They are both relying on shock and disgust to make money. I agree that NYT is far more fact based and substantive, but the core problem people seem to have with the TikTokers is almost just as bad in traditional journalism.
Also yes I love Andrew Callahan, and the first scene of that video was shot 3 blocks from my office.
> I agree that NYT is far more fact based and substantive, but the core problem people seem to have with the TikTokers is almost just as bad in traditional journalism.
The core problem people have with TikTok spectacle is it is less factual and not substantive.
That may be so, but the article doesn't say anything about "facts" or "substance" of the content. It says "People need to stop coming into our community and exploiting us and profiting off what we are going through", "quit exploiting these poor people", "It’s become very exploitative there", "It’s detrimental because it isn’t helping".
The article and many comments here express the sentiment that the problem is making money off these people without directly helping them. The very high level of what NYT does is the same, albeit with better norms and processes that are less likely to cause harm and more likely to lead to accurate reporting.
> That may be so, but the article doesn't say anything about "facts" or "substance" of the content. It says "People need to stop coming into our community and exploiting us and profiting off what we are going through", "quit exploiting these poor people", "It’s become very exploitative there", "It’s detrimental because it isn’t helping".
We were discussing the NYT and an article you chose. Not the Guardian article.
The Guardian article was less informative. It described the content of the TikTok videos in between the portions you quoted however.
> The article and many comments here express the sentiment that the problem is making money off these people without directly helping them.
This was 1 of several complaints in the Guardian article. And I saw 0 comments say this. 1 comment said all advertising supported journalism is horrific. 1 comment said earning money off others without consent is vile.
What? I was replying to your claim "The core problem people have with TikTok", which is about TT, not NYT.
My point is that it's not the core problem people have with tiktok in this case. Currently every top level comment here that is critical of TikToker behavior is complaining about exploitation, not lack of factuality. The original article also does not complain about lack of factuality, primarily focusing on exploitation.
Since every top level comment here and all the articles shared about tiktok refer to exploitation and not factuality, it's not the case that "The core problem people have with TikTok spectacle is it is less factual and not substantive.", if by "people " you are referring to HN commenters or people interviewed by the guardian, or the authors of the guardian piece. NYT is silent on the issue since their piece was written months ago.
> What? I was replying to your claim "The core problem people have with TikTok", which is about TT, not NYT.
The context you chose was equating NYT and TikTok. People have more than 1 core problem with TikTok of course.
> My point is that it's not the core problem people have with tiktok in this case. Currently every top level comment here that is critical of TikToker behavior is complaining about exploitation, not lack of factuality.
The top level comments critical of TikTok spectacle were about consent mostly. And I reject considering top level comments only.
I'm surprised that the "alarm" is over the tourism and filming of it.
Not over us allowing people to self-destruct, which is what we do when we enable this behavior, which IS what we're doing right now. In San Francisco where I live we do this too. Plenty of "connected" charities making money and growing by serving the needs (addictions) of the drugged street population.
We need to be more alarmed at that, not at the exposing of it.
> I'm surprised that the "alarm" is over the tourism and filming of it.
It is possible to be alarmed about more than one aspect of a situation, but decide to only focus on one part of it when telling a story.
People being homeless and doing drugs isn't news to me (sadly), so focusing on that in this piece would not have given me any new information. However, I had no idea that people were exploiting drugged-out homeless people for TikTok views; that was new information to me.
Only if you think that "exposing" it(read: exploiting it for social media views) is doing anything to help the problem.
Experts seem to think the shame and misrepresentation actually makes the situation worse rather than doing anything to improve it, so curious what your thoughts are on the matter.
> I'm surprised that the "alarm" is over the tourism and filming of it.
I’m not that surprised. It’s a stance which doesn’t require doing anything to solve the underlying issue, but lets people take a moral stance which feels somewhat humanitarian.
This article is worthless without links-- you're supposed to take the authors word for it that what they're writing about is reprehensible but you're carefully sheltered from seeing it yourself. It's reasonable to wonder if this is because the author is overplaying their hand.
I attempted to google and immediately found a footage matching their description, but not from tiktokers but from television news.
I'm somewhat okay with this - it doesn't mean the barrier of proof should be zero, but in that many of these "influencers" are openly chasing follower and view counts (dare I say some are addicted to it?) then I'm okay with not enabling that.
You don't need to link to CSAM sites to talk about issues like that. Similar to not needing to link to the worst of rotten.com or whatever just to make observations on it.
> I attempted to google and immediately found a footage matching their description, but not from tiktokers but from television news.
My perception has been that tiktok isn't particularly well indexed by Google.
Yuck example, but it's a point. We aren't talking about something as extreme here, however. Given that hyperbole in journalism is common, I think we ought to hope for enough information to validate where it wouldn't be reprehensible or unlawful to provide it.
I was guilty of hyperbole myself with the worthless comment, thanks for the reality check. :) (and fortunately you could see the article and judge that I'd overstated it!)
> In 2022, the typical compensation for YouTube content creators in the United States was roughly $4,600 monthly, according to Influencer Market Hub research. Profit depends on the reach of a video, so in some cases, it can be far higher, but the platform pays approximately $20 for every 1,000 views.
A lot of twitch streamers have a VOD channel (video on demand, or just stream archives) on youtube to tap their lucrative payouts. It's relatively easy to do, just after a stream ends edit out the quiet bits and add some background music, easy 20 min video.
The more visibility the US's failure to house and assist those in need the better. Shame this nation into oblivion until it changes its ways.
People use drugs across all social classes. Those living on the streets just use them where it's visible for lack of alternatives. At least we have strong laws protecting filming/photographing any public activity where there's no reasonable expectation of privacy, so we can shine light on these societal failures until resources are allocated appropriately.
What's happening in this country's city streets should be embarrassing to all citizens. Through this particular lens the US looks like a failed state, such a dereliction of duties for a first-world nation.
This is basically my position. Yeah it feels kinda gross that people are blatantly doing this kind of recording for views, but the far larger crime is that the situation exists in the first place.
The US is a monumentally rich country where people are left to basically rot on the streets if they're currently unable to care for themselves. There's some support institutions of course, and I applaud those that work there, but so much more needs to be done.
Unfortunately the answer is (limited) authoritarianism. See Singapore as the quintessential example of this. I think they may in fact be the highest trust society on earth as a result of it.
Folks would take seats at hawker stands by leaving their 4000 USD macbooks and keys/wallet as markers. No one even bats an eye.
Singapore is a city-state made up of two+ etnicities, what worked for them probably wouldnt scale to something more complex as a big & diverse nation like U.S.A
How long are we going to rely on this as a catch all excuse?
The USA, the most unique country on earth. Solutions that work all over the world can't possibly work here because we're big, or diverse, or X, or Y or Z?
Whether it's healthcare in general, mental health, mass transit, polarization of politics (I think about growing up in Australia where you could be on differing sides of the spectrum and have discussion or debate and still go for a drink together. Moving to the US, I see regularly "I'd rather be dead than be caught having a liberal as a friend" or similar), internet access, or any other thing, the whole "The US is just too different from the rest of the world for any solution to work here that we don't invent ourselves (and won't because we hate upsetting the status quo)."
These sound like excuses for not trying. Plenty of US cities are smaller and don’t have anywhere close to the handle on major social problems that Singapore does.
If Singapore were in the U.S. it would be the second largest city by population.
Singapore has four national languages. It is very diverse.
To take homelessness as an example, police in Singapore can force you to go to a shelter, which is one reason why you don’t see homeless people everywhere. But they also have shelters with space. Many US cities don’t have space for their homeless population. The waiting list is years long.
You can do that outside of cities in many countries though, but yes, in Singapore (also in HK and large swats of bangkok or Tokyo) you can do that in the city. In HK I often left my bag in the seat of the coffee place (including outside) to pick up someone from the MTR; people don’t touch it.
Because you lose a lot of ‘freedom’. You cannot enforce as strictly as Singapore (where spiting gum on the street is illegal and such) without a lot of enforcement and that goes against the US constitution; to protect the state, Singapore for instance has gun laws that will get you fined, jailed and lashes if you have a gun or bullets or both. Singapore has free speech in the constitution but it’s not quite that free, again to make sure the state can have full control. These things are currently not compatible with the values of the US.
It’s mostly not about punishment, it’s about the chance of being caught. Plenty of crimes in the U.S. aren’t even enforced, so it doesn’t matter how harsh the punishment is. On the other hand, the U.S. is the most imprisoned country on the planet, so strictness isn’t the issue.
Because Singapore is a city-state, it is covered in cameras. Crimes are much more rare because criminals know they will be caught.
Isn't the phrase for "taking attention away from the cause of the issue to focus on the symptoms" "misinformation"?
Curious how you see anything good coming from focusing the attention of the public away from the systemic issues that lead to this and towards shock content about how disgusting the people that are in this situation are.
Addicts using other addicts to keep their lifestyle, with a third part benefiting economically of it. Another day at the magical realm of Drugsterworld.
People descending to such hell rings, and paying for misery so they have something new to feed to their insatiable "fans", should seek help. Your fans on tiktok aren't really your friends, people.
The only legit reason to do this is to help, not to entertain or to brag.
And the government should take this people from the streets and provide real help to their citizens. Having one missile more or less will not make a difference.
This is what happens when you don’t institutionalize these people in psychiatric hospitals. They need to come back, just with more process and transparency this time.
This is entirely correct for some subset of the homeless population. Some people are far gone enough through untreated mental illness or drug addiction to where they can no longer be reasonably classified as being sound of mind, they're no longer able to take care of themselves even at a basic level.
These people need professional help even if they don't nominally consent. To let them slowly languish and degrade further mentally and physically on the street is not compassionate, it is grotesque.
Obviously, that's not all homeless people, but it's maybe the most visible segment of the population.
Agreed. For people who need serious help and don’t have resources, there’s nowhere for them to go. Dumping them on the street is an abject moral failure in this country.
It is far more dehumanizing to be so hopelessly addicted to drugs that you’ve lost all ability to support yourself and are shooting up in public. The filming of it is a secondary and far more minor indignity.
We (as a society) consider addicts personally responsible for their actions. For instance, if an alcoholic drives drunk and kills someone, we don't say "oh they're an alcoholic and therefore not responsible for what happened." Whether or not you want to call it a choice is up to you.
But we, as a society, are hypocrites. There are people (anecdotally I think a lot or even a majority), who, when asked, would say that alcohol is not a drug. Simply using the law (alcohol is legal), they will say it cannot be a drug as drugs are illegal or subscribed. This is, of course, non sense.
The other point is that many dui’s and accidents do not happen to alcoholics but rather casual users of alcohol, like students having a drink, no idea what their limits are and getting into a car. That’s different from actual alcoholics who down half a liter of vodka just to get out of bed. I believe they should be treated differently; the latter is ill, the former is a criminal.
Addiction is a disease but society is not kind to the sufferers. It will change though; before the 90s, most mental illness was just ‘don’t whine, walk it off’. Doctors in 80s would send people with anxiety or depression home with a clean bill of health and just ‘work hard, it’ll pass’. If they were women and the doctors men, it would be considered as female hysterics. This all changed quite a bit over the past decades, at least in the west. Addiction will get there and in some countries that is going faster than others.
Any actual Addicts (alcohol or crack or TikTok) operating heavy machinery is a bad idea; functional addicts are just not easy to recognise. An ex colleague of mine is a functional alcohol who drinks exactly 2.5 liters of vodka per day ; he doesn’t drive, he is smart, he functions fully. Not many people know he is an addict. I would say it’s easier to recognise addicts to social media far faster than him because you can see their phone, and when I see them driving while scrolling on their phone, I hope they get a dui and their license taken and then therapy; I am not sure how it’s not as dangerous as driving drunk and yet I see people swerving sitting on their phone daily while swerving without phone is very rare (at least here).
I don’t think you can automatically classify addiction as disease. It can be a disease, but it can also be a compulsion that a “sufferer” chooses to partake in. There is an implicit assumption in your argument that all drug addicts would choose to stop if they weren’t addicted. In my experience, that isn’t true. Many drug users like to use drugs and would not stop using given the choice.
For a more benign example: I “suffer” from dermatophagia. It’s a compulsion that would be very hard for me to stop. But I like doing it. I wouldn’t stop even if I could. This is similar to how addiction is a compulsion, but that doesn’t make the behavior something done unwillingly.
If you are an addict how do you know that the liking is not the addiction? Many ex smokers liked smoking but after really kicking off the habits they cannot stand the smell or thought of it. Same with many ex drinkers; they would tell you they just like drinking and wouldn’t stop, but when they do they dislike the taste even if not full blown alcoholics to begin with. I think you forget that you can only ask them to their choice after waning off the addiction, not while they still have it. Same for your benign pleasure.
But sure, it depends on the case, I didn’t say it didn’t, however I think there is little interpretation for the Philly zombies in this case; given a choice (not addicted and a life that supports that), they would, probably all of them.
I read the title as Philippines at first but Philadelphia makes sadly even more sense. I haven’t really seen a drug/homeless problem as bad as major North American cities anywhere else
> Jeff, a content creator in Kensington who runs a channel called Jeff’s High on Life, believes there is an ethical way to do this sort of filming if you pour the resources back into the community.
This is what I wanted to day after reading some comments talking about “raising awareness”. Put your money where your mouth is and show us the receipts of all the money made off the videos being donated.
> He makes about $1,000 a month, which he spends on wound care and supplies like clothes, but says he’s heard of cases in which content creators set up GoFundMe pages for the addicts who never see that money.
No. It is how companies with money increase the gap in wealth distribution. They pay pennies to encourage "influencers" to behave poorly in order to maximize their revenue
> to Influencer Market Hub research. Profit depends on the reach of a video, so in some cases, it can be far higher, but the platform pays approximately $20 for every 1,000 views.
There's no way videos on YT featuring drugs are getting $20 CPM so it makes no sense to include that, and in no way $20 CPM the norm. The sensibilities of the journalist is undermined by such malicious carelessness.
Noah was humiliated or even abused by his sons when he was blacked out drunk in his tent, and subsequently cursed the family line of the guilty part.
The story is a clear warning against abusing people who are incapacitated. How many people haven't been humiliated by "friends" when blacked out drunk, or when unconscious from other drugs? Or even worse, the countless of people who have been abused when in such condition. Would it be fun to do the same thing to somebody being incapacitated due to a medical condition?
It's high time for government to act and regulate social media platforms more - and not just TikTok, but also YouTube and Instagram, where similar content isn't moderated either unless it generates public outrage.
The list of "internet challenges" [1] alone should be enough to warrant serious crackdowns across the board, and that's just dangerous challenges and doesn't include other noxious effects of social media like hordes of Instagram followers ruining flower fields [2][3] and tourist destinations [4].
And hell, not just the platforms should be held accountable. Track down and arrest every single one of those utterly vile people exploiting the suffering of fellow human beings. Just because they're doing it "on the internet" shouldn't mean immunity from the law.
I know it's not the US, but here in Europe you'd run afoul of GDPR - filming or photographing people is an activity regulated by it. In Germany, there's an explicit criminal code protecting "helpless" persons from filming (§201a Abs. 1 Nr. 2 StGB [1]).
In the US, there are numerous states who require consent for recordings, so that may be another avenue.
In the US you have a constitutional right to photograph people in public. Laws only regulate what you do with those photos. Sharing on tiktok doesn't seem to violate the laws I'm familiar with but I don't really know.
> If you are seeking to photograph for commercial purposes you may be required to gain permission from anyone who was involved in the film or photograph. Commercial purposes usually means that you are photographing for financial gain or to promote goods or services.
When your income from Tiktok is tied to stream views etc., and you provide little journalistic content, you might have a hard time demonstrating that your stream wasn't "for commercial purposes".
The ASMP (American Society for Media Photographers) who work to protect the rights of photography among other things recommends that property and other releases be obtained if used for commercial purposes and states that in some situations, a release may be "required".
Can they? If a person from France uses weed in California, will France get mad?
Seems kinda silly to enforce a country's laws on someone even when they're in another country. I guess social media makes it kind of a gray area though, since the violating act might be the upload itself (which can happen anywhere and is essentially 'continuous' even when the uploader returns to their home country).
It depends on the law where you're from. US citizens are sometimes surprised that they can be prosecuted by the US for crimes they've committed abroad, even when it's not a crime in the place where it happened. The term for this is "extraterritorial jurisdiction".
> Seems kinda silly to enforce a country's laws on someone even when they're in another country.
It's relatively common these days. The US assumes global jurisdiction for anything that touches the US Dollar (as e.g. Kim Dotcom of Megaupload has been fighting for years now), and most Western nations assume global jurisdiction for a select few grave crimes (mostly murder, war crimes and sexual exploitation of underagers).
They could. An American could say unsavory things about the Thai monarch in New York and end up getting into trouble when she travels to Thailand years later.
One of my personal stances is that I’ll never photograph someone who is in a compromised position, e.g. a drunk person stumbling out of a bar, or a homeless person sleeping on the street. This seems like the bare minimum in terms of respect and human decency.
It’s pretty disheartening to see these kinds of TikTok trends just blow through these kinds of ethical concerns and norms. I’ve already worried at times that poorly behaving street photographers are going to make it harder for most photographers to continue their work. I don’t even know what to say about trends like this one. It’s one of the many reasons that I’m convinced humans are not capable of using certain forms of social media in a healthy way. Our brains are not equipped for it.