Coldplay kiss-cam flap proves we’re already our own surveillance state A tech executive's alleged affair exposed on a stadium jumbotron is ripe fodder for the gossip rags, but it exhibits something else: proof that we need not wait for an AI-fueled dystopian surveillance state to descend on us - we're perfectly able and willing to surveil ourselves. The embracing couple caught at a Coldplay …
It's fair to be concerned about the impact of ubiquitous surveillance and how as a society we hate and love it at the same time. But two points:
- community enforcement of social norms through pointing & laughing, scolding, or even shunning & kicking out is as old as humanity, it's the scale that has changed over time
- to many of us, the more important norm violation is someone having a romantic relationship within their workplace chain of command (potential for favoritism, harassment, etc.) rather than marital infidelity
CEO finds out the hard way that when the kiss‑cam turns you Yellow, your marriage, your job and your share options all go Cold.
Cross the wrong line In My Place, end up humming “Lights will guide you home… to the spare room.”
Somewhere, HR is desperately trying to Fix You—but LinkedIn’s rooftop chorus is stuck on “You are… in Trouble.”
"the more important norm violation is someone having a romantic relationship within their workplace chain of command"
I don't suppose my wife & I are neither the first or last couple to have met at work. As she was a research student and I was staff (research assistant) that might have fallen foul of today's strictures.
Is that if they'd just reacted like normal people when they found themselves on the big screen, they would have escaped scrutiny. It is only the way they reacted immediately covering faces and crouching down as if they were on the FBI's most wanted list that made people notice it. That's why Chris Martin called them out, and why people who happened to have recorded that on their phones would have bothered to upload onto social media and why people who saw those posts would have looked to see if it was someone they recognized. And why that recognition became an instant huge internet meme rather than just gossip among their friends or co-workers. Well that and him happening to be the CEO of a billion dollar company no one has ever heard of.
I was "caught" on a kiss cam with my girlfriend once. We were kind of embarrassed when we saw ourselves not because we were doing anything wrong (no affairs or HR violations) but just being on a big screen in front of so many people caught us by surprise. If someone happened to have recorded us, and given the size of the crowd (not as big as that Coldplay concert but still very big) that's almost a given, it either was never posted on social media or if it was no one recognized us and alerted us about it.
Like I often tell my kids (and myself) if they're in an embarrassing situation: ACT confident -- parallel to "fake it 'til you make it" -- but quietly, without drawing attention. Don't act flustered, don't rush, don't draw attention, just be forgettable.
It's like Men in Black but without need for a Neuralyzer, since any group/audience usually has a significant Someone Else's Problem (SEP) field up. The SEP field is useful for blocking truly strange and remarkable things, so UNremarkable things are ignored by default. And exuding a quiet confidence only amplifies the effect. Like so many political aides who can zip in and out of frame while being ignored/forgotten.
(Once a year, I run the A/V for a live show of sorts for 5 nights, with much of the content created from scratch. No matter how panicked I am about the content, audio volumes, show flow, mistakes, etc., I have to put on my "game face" and confidently maintain control of myself and the show. Pretending I'm in charge of the whole room* helps me focus on nailing every cue. *Because I kind of am -- the visuals include "cue cards" to the stage and they'd be lost without me! And I'm never sorry for cueing a sound effect when I feel it fits -- most everyone loves how I bring the whole package. But if I let myself get nervous, then I might screw up and everyone would notice big time!)
When having to stand up in front of an audience myself, my approach is to act as though I know what I'm doing. After all, the fact I've been asked to present means someone else already thinks that.
Drifting, I think it was George Burns who said that if you can fake sincerity you've got it made, and it certainly seems to be the main skill of a lot of contemporary politicians.
"if they're in an embarrassing situation: ACT confident -- parallel to ... but quietly, without drawing attention. Don't act flustered, don't rush, don't draw attention, just be forgettable."
Just put your clothes on and promise the cop that you and her won't engage in that behaviour there again. (Extra points if you can both keep a straight face. ;)
You have to be young and not expected to know better. Alfresco fornication quicky loses its attraction with age, probably fortunately.
My youngest daughter went on her first "girls away" holiday a couple of weeks ago, she is playing on a foreign band tour this week, and will be once again (with a different band) in a few weeks time.
I tell her each time, the same as I did the first time we left her alone in the house for a long weekend.
"I don't want to see you in jail, in hospital or in the newspapers and I don't want you involved in a plus or minus on the population count."
Well, actually I would think that they did react in a fairly normal way [1]. Not everyone at a gig -- even a Coldplay one -- is necessarily an exhibitionist or wants their recorded image flaunted for the benefit, entertainment, or amusement of others. The unwanted scrutiny wasn't their fault (irrespective of whatever other failings they might have), and what with having it being thrust on them by surprise, it's unclear why anyone might expect them -- presumably mid-snog -- to have the presence of mind to act in what you (and indeed I) might think of an "optimal" manner. They might perhaps be to blame for illicit snogging, but that is only a matter for their immediate circle; and so I think it unfair to also blame them for the "wrong" reaction when being ambushed.
[1] Other versions of normal may also be considered appropriate.
"if they'd just reacted like normal people"
Good point. If once they realised they were on the crowd cam, they embraced in a full-on snog the camera would have panned away; the halves of the faces in close (full tongue) contact would not be all that recognisable.
"Get a room" is advice good as it is old.
The chap's missus will be pissed off 90% because her marriage and by association she, has been dragged through the mud in public and 10% because he has been poking the sexytary as it were.
If he limited the damage to the 10% he might (or even probably) be forgiven; if the wife actually preferred his poking [around] elsewhere she might be content until it suited her to temporarily turn a blind eye.
Anyway as far as I can see if Americans aren't killing each other they fucking each other ... that is when they are not actively doing both to the rest of the planet.
Maybe they did react like 'normal people': They were suddenly in the spotlight on a 'Kiss Camera' when they weren't kissing?
The impression was they were up to 'something' but that doesn't mean they were: Rather, they could have seen themselves and thought 'shit: That looks real bad' when they hadn't really thought about it and were just getting carried away with the moment?
So, perhaps they were up to something. Perhaps it was extramarital. Or, perhaps, they're just good friends and were enjoying the concert. WE don't know: We're just guessing.
But it's a mess: Was the scrutiny justified? Were they doing something illegal? Was there a genuine public interest angle? Or was it just people thinking we should all live in a reality TV world? That this is all a much broader scaled 'Truman show'?
I think, to me, that's the greater concern: That people are so used to being able to watch people in what would normally be a private situation that they forget to look away if they see something they shouldn't and instead film it and share it and comment on it without understanding what it is they're seeing, and that then causes problems and an outcry and a witch hunt. And to me this really is a concern because it affects people's willingness to help others who will die without that help. Men who won't help an unresponsive female because... hands on the chest? Bare the skin to put AED pads on? No way! Not touching a woman's chest! And this is why there's been a campaign this year about saying it's okay. But this 'big brother' armchair sleuth mentality seeking to publicly humiliate people who are doing something that only might be a little dodgy: That's pushing us back to the point that a man will walk past an unresponsive woman, and not even calling 911/999 or even 112 in case they're challenged as to why they did nothing else.
And if the great unwashed were more preocupied with thier own lives and minded thier own business like well adjusted adults, then maybe just maybe, sociaty would be less judgemental, less polarised, and less inclined to virue signal how pure they are by publicly shaming people who's lives they know nothing about.
Lookong at you redit aita....
What's ironic is that if they'd just reacted like normal people when they found themselves on the big screen, they would have escaped scrutiny.
Depends. If it was a gig local to where they lived, then it's very possible that someone else would recognise them.
But maybe they were away "on a business trip"....
1. The "Kiss cam" is not there to surveil, but as a service to highlight couples, as a kind of positive reward. It was not secret, Byron knew it existed and was watching the screen in real time even, but never guessed it would zoom in on him.
2. The bad side of surveillance is not that cheaters are caught, it is that that information is used for blackmail or to force the cheaters to do more bad things, especially politians. This incident has no overlap with that - quite the opposite.
Exactly. If you're going to snog your mistress in public you have to accept the risk that someone will see you. For some people, that's the rush, until they get caught. It really doesn't matter if it's a papparazo, a private eye, or a roving camera at a concert, it has nothing to do with an imagined surveillance state.
The surveillance state would be you getting a speeding ticket for doing 1 MPH over the speed limit when there are no other vehicles on the highway. It affects you directly.
This shot of a couple of idiots snogging in public is just titillation that sells column-inches (or rather, tube of ewe hits). It has no affect on you whatsoever ... unless you are also an idiot prone to cheating on your spouse in public, in which case you may decide not to do that in public anymore after the freely provided lesson.
Not that I'd condone it, but the scale has multiplied:
Snog your mistress in public: a few people might see you.
Snog your mistress in public in a stadium (old days): a lot of people in the stadium might see you.
(OK, so if you're deemed important enough, you'd probably make the tabloids the next day, and more people would have seen you then)
Snog your mistress in public in a stadium (modern times): everyone in the world with an internet connection might see you.
Also couple that with:
Old days: 'We saw you snogging, but have no idea who you are'
Modern times: 'We saw you snogging, and your name is all over the internet'
They will only show couples that match the performative norm. If you're not smiling, kissing etc then they will never put you on the screen in the first place.
They don't zoom in at random.
However, it is intended to be embarrassing at least half the time, which is why I really don't like it.
I tend to agree. Maybe I'm at the age where no human behaviour really surprises me (it may disappoint, but not really surprise), but I have to be very bored to even glance at the this type of "news". Headlines may be amusing, and discussions considering human behaviour can be educational, but that's as far as I go. It's not news and I fail to see why I should waste any more of my time on this planet on something that is of no consequence to me, or those around me.
In my experience, colleagues in a company frequently get up to this kind of stuff and there are rarely any consequences from the employer unless the disturbance to their personal life affects the employer performance.
In one previous job, the married MD plucked the most attractive young lady off the production floor, half his age to be on a "expo" stand. Soon he was divorced, married her and they later divorced.
It only matters for Byron because Astronomer are a listed stock and there is a lot of publicity.
It's only a transgression of the 11th Commandment: Thou shalt not get found out. But many US companies do have policies that forbid relationships between employees, even if they are not directly reporting to each other. Other countries would either completely ignore it or try and ensure that the relationship could not adversely affect other people. In all the countries I've lived in, I've been in companies where there were relationships between employees and, as long as there was no sense of preferential treatment, nobody seemed to care. The other thing employees have to worry about, having been through this myself, is what happens if the relatiionship breaks up, because this can have even more adverse effects on the workplace.
Weirdly, the first thing I knew about this was a grab of the picture being posted completely without context on our family chat. It was so grainy and the colours were off that I thought it was a photo from the 1980s or 90s of a girl being held inappropriately by an older man. This itself was in response to my own selfie with Guy Garvey who was at the same bar as we were a couple of weeks ago. Charming man and I'm now delighted my wife took the picture. Though I was very embarassed at the time!
The whole thing reminds me, and I'll apologise in advance for the use of the terms even if their correct, of an obsessive self-referential media in a post-modern society: being caught on camera is an event in itself worthy of reporting on. This is why Jade Goody (remember her?) became famous for being famous…
Am I now going to be known as "that guy in Brussels"? ;-)
Any technology is always a mix of good and bad.
It is useful to have cameras to records the misdeeds of those in power and authority, although governments are capable of protecting themselves...mostly. You may remember Matt Hancock kissing his aide on camera. What has been seen, etc. "Cabinet office minister Julia Lopez said that as a rule “there are not cameras sited within ministers’ offices”." [Guardian] Presumably so they can get away with stuff. Hancock was just unlucky.
Cams can be widely beneficial. I speak as a victim of crime who would have liked the perpetrators to have been caught on camera. Dashcams protect innocent people from road ragers and other criminals. Uniform cams protect workers, and women can use cams to protect themselves against abusive behaviour by providing irrefutable evidence. Cheating on your partner is a crappy thing to do and nobody is going to weep for you if you get caught.
But there are downsides. Upskirting. Voyeurism. Stalking. All of which carry penalties which are easy to impose as those responsible usually save (and back up) the evidence against them.
It is more concerning when police forces or retail stores use third rate AI with cameras. To deal with that we need very large automatic payouts for whenever they get it wrong. Large enough to focus minds, so that they do the hard work rather than pointing and clicking away a presumption of innocence.
We need to adapt, are and will. I'm sure El Reg's readers do not post on social media that they are on their hols (and so their house is empty), and only go dogging where there are no cameras. Survival of the fittest, etc.
One solution is for blokes to disguise themselves as women on the way to the shops and change back on their way home. After doing this regularly for a bit, you may begin to enjoy it. The silky underwear, mastering walking in heels, the glances your figure gets, the joy of a new frock. You are connecting with your inner femininity. Before you know it, a new you!
And come the glorious day, cams and cam monitoring facilities will always be primary targets when citizens rise up to overthrow their oppressors, in Tooting and beyond. Power to the people!
One solution is for blokes to disguise themselves as women on the way to the shops...
Like this...
Professor Malcolm Gaskill, a historian who specializes in witchcraft in early modern Britain, described today's technology in a 2016 op-ed as just a faster, more public outlet "for the worst behavior."
If you're going to quote a British scholar, at least quote him with the correct spelling.
Yup.
1984, Brazil, and other works (of perfectly valid content and justifiable intentions) were all based on the idea that it is Goverment that is the watchful eye responsible for a dystopian future.
Then along came Facebook and it's been a downhill ride ever since.
I'm rather happy that George Orwell is already dead, because he would certainly have a heart attack if he saw what our "modern" civilization has become.
"I'm rather happy that George Orwell is already dead, because he would certainly have a heart attack if he saw what our "modern" civilization has become."
I am not sure Orwell (Blair) would have. He and his generation lived through a world that went completely to shit and tore itself to shreds and afterwards those surviving tasked to build a new and better world (hopefully, perhaps vainly.)
Today he might say to himself "not again" but perhaps in the late 1990s and noughties his generation might have seen the technology as something to be harnessed to build a better world, which it could have been, rather than a global mechanism of inevitable enshittification.
Today I guess one doesn't need to be particularly observant or baptized Jezza to pen a Jeremiad. :(
Might be true that old ladies that weigh roughly the same as an adult Moscovy duck (not drake)† are now relatively safe from arbitrary broiling, witch hunts are never out of fashion.
Anyone would have to concede Stevie Wonder had by comparison 20/20 vision if it's not clear that the current US administration is engaged in a wide ranging, deranged witch hunt which will leave the 1950s House Committee on un-American Activities for dead. The only thing missing from the hands of the inquisitors is a personalised MAGA edition of the Malleus.
The other side of politics hasn't be reticent in engaging in the same abhorrent behaviour at least arguably until recently when the table were turned.
† just to be clear so there's no African or European swallow nonsense. Adult female Cairina moschata.
Top tip: If you don't want people to know that you're behaving like an arsehole in public, don't behave like an arsehole in public. And if you are caught behaving like an arsehole in public, don't moan about being caught behaving like an arsehole in public. Behaving like an arsehole in public was your choice. Own it.
Nowadays it's much, much harder than it ever was before for cops to assault people or for racists to hurl abuse, because there is a very high chance that a passerby will film it. This is a Good Thing.
Yep, victim blaming is another aspect of the witch hunt. No doubt there was plenty of "If she hadn't... we wouldn't have thought she was a witch." And there's plenty of that on display here too. Whatever the peccadillos of the individual, the consequences are out of all proportion.
We gleefully lap up posts about ...
Speak for yourself - I'm not on those social media things, and to be frank, d.g.a.s. about the couple in question in this article.
And before somsone points out that I'm here in the comments section - it's the comments about the subject, not the people & their activities I'm finding interesting.
I was particularly annoyed by "we're all perpetually ready to use that tech to make those we feel have violated the social contract pay publicly for their transgressions. ". Don't mistake a few busybodies with nothing better to do for "all of us" - most of us are no worse than we've always been. The witch-hunting comparison is fair, but the witch-hunters were a minority of nutters who fixated on persecuting the women on whom most of the ordinary poor folks relied for healthcare. Plus ca change...
Meeting up at any concert with your mistress is a bad move*, you can meet up with your friends, and then a cover story needs to be made up. Or you can meet up with your wife's friends!? Then what? Or you can meet up with your wife and your pool boy! Whoo Hoo!
*or as some on the street would say, a Coldplay
“.....only the unjust can object to the truth”
You know that does sound worryingly close to the old ‘if you have nothing to hide....’ argument!
Now i”m not sure what the situation is in the US, but here in the UK, if you are in a public place, then you can no expectation of privacy. In theory at least, if you are in a public place then I could follow you around all day recording you. But we also have laws against ‘harassment’ but what constitutes harassment is vague, ultimately it would be up to a Jury. So if I were to take a couple of picture of a couple in a park, fine, follow them and keep taking pictures of them, probably not so fine - even though, technically it’s the same thing.
I argue about the tone of the article. ‘Surveillance State of our own making’? No. if you are out in public then it’s fair game. Start to worry when government or corporations start to want cameras in private areas, just in case, or more likely ‘to protect the children’.
Data Protection anyone? If this happened in the UK or EU, I would not be allowed to upload this video to social media or a web site unless I had the written consent of everyone in said video. Plus there will likely be people who very much do not want their picture being taken, because they are fleeing violent or abusive relationships.
Best put the jumbotron away on European leg of the tour ......
This is a lesson for us all that lack of privacy can be devastating. In this case only for a small number of people. But when it is ubiquitous, when people can be tracked by cctv, data & AI. It will mean those handing the systems will have extreme power. They will use AI to predict behaviour in a minority report manner as well as use it to influence or outright control behaviour (geo-fencing for one). It is so powerful it will corrupt totally. It is more dangerous to humanity than nuclear weapons as more likley to be used. It is already being employed and its use will grow.
Remember the fuss in the UK about the government DNA database? The way people pretty much en-masse said "nope" to the plans as they were originally proposed? Then along comes companies that will unearch your genetic heritage for a fee, and we all bundle in.
I'd guess that The Surveillance State can only dream of having capabilities that people willing give away to companies all over the world, so long as its free or "an affordable present".
good story, making me feel sorry for trump. rush to judgment has a long history, the salem witch trials are a good example i would think. lizzie borden was not found guilty but many people over the years still think she gave her father 40 whacks. most venues like concerts and sports have video cameras recording people in the stands/seats. pretty foolish not to be aware of the surroundings if you're trying to be discrete.
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