Harsh punishments
The Chinese normally mean it, too. They executed the head of their food and drug watchdog because of corruption.
Over here that would net you early retirement with a healthy pay-off.
A rather hacked-off Chinese couple is suing the operator of the Shanghai metro after CCTV footage of them indulging in some light snogging was uploaded onto YouTube: The vid, shot in September, became an instant hit last week after popping up on the web. China Daily explains: "A mocking voice can be heard in the background …
"Yes, we all expect privacy when we go out in public, don't we?"
Yes. Yes we rightfully expect "a bit of privacy and not to be splattered all over the web" (which is what Stu said in the first instance). We rightfully expect not to have our random moments digitally rendered in the public domain unless commiting an offence.
It's a sad day indeed when you can't give your sweetheart a loving kiss goodbye without being mocked for it on a worldwide platform.
I suspect that you'd change your tune if a clip of you scratching your hairy arse whilst waiting for the bus (or whatever) were to be subjected to a voicover, subsequently turning you into a minor YouTube celebrity accompanied by the baggage of grief that can often come with unsolicited minor levels of 'fame'. For all your colleagues to see.
[Icon is for all you young lovers out there...]
There is a difference between snogging in public, in front of people you don't know but are comfortable with being in an enclosed space with, and snogging on Internet video for the entire world to see, There are more than two levels of privacy. A gym is a public place as well, but if someone started taking pictures of sweaty cleavage and buttocks you'd still expect them to be thrown out at the very least.
If someone started filming me in a train, I'd ask them what the hell they were doing. If they were filming me in the act of kissing someone or something similarly intimate, I wouldn't bother asking questions, I'd just lamp them, since I already know the answer. Which is "I'm a disgusting bottom-feeding pervert who thinks that because I have no private life worth thinking about, nor should anyone else". The fact that it was done via CCTV adds Kafkaesque helplessness to an already sick situation.
If the Chinese catch the dreck responsible and string him up, it'll take some deep breathing and long meditation on the evils of an unaccountable and corrupt government having the power of life and death over individual citizens before I feel even the smallest smidgeon of sympathy.
A private moment of intimacy shared by two people is not a legitimate target for interwebnet upload. Hardcore sloppy invasions between groups of paid actors/actresses, on the other hand, is quite fine. The perpitrator is a voyeur, a nasty piece of flotsam in society and yes, the harsher the punishment met out in this instance, the better: unless of course the perp is his wife; or her husband.
Mmmm - a fate worse than a fate worse than death... that's pretty nasty.