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.

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.

---------------------

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.

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.

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.

> “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.

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...

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.

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/

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...

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.