Expanding our private information policy to include media

https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2021/private-information-policy-update

by ibejoeb • 5 years ago

86 96 5 years ago

blog.twitter.com

ibejoeb2• 5 years ago

Adding a consent provision for the sharing of media:

NEW: media of private individuals without the permission of the person(s) depicted.

Doctor_Fegg• 5 years ago

This is going to be quite spectacularly broken here in the UK.

It is entirely legal to publish a photo of, say, someone walking down the street without their consent.

It is _not_ legal to do so in such a way that implies endorsement. So you could publish a photo of "people busy shopping in Oxford Street" without getting signed model release from everyone depicted in the photo. But you couldn't publish the same photo and claim "these are 500 happy people who've just bought the new ZogPhone at the Zog Store on Oxford Street!".

That's fine. Typically, every summer, UK newspapers will print a front-cover photo of a crowded beach with a headline about "here's lots of people enjoying the sunshine". (We're British, we love talking about the weather.) And that's the case throughout UK media. I used to edit the best-selling magazine about inland boating. Every month, our cover would be a photo of someone happily steering their boat on a river or canal. We didn't get model release: we didn't need to under UK law.

Those front covers can no longer be tweeted. Twitter now says:

Under our private information policy, you can’t share the following types of private information or media, without the permission of the person who it belongs to:
NEW: media of private individuals without the permission of the person(s) depicted.

Is Twitter really going to take down the front page of the Guardian or the Financial Times because they haven't got signed model release for everyone in that crowd photo? I'm not convinced this has been thought through.

zimpenfish• 5 years ago

"We recognize that there are instances where account holders may share images or videos of private individuals [...], or as part of a newsworthy event due to public interest value, and this might outweigh the safety risks to a person."

And if that wasn't enough, there's also:

"For instance, we would take into consideration whether the image is publicly available and/or is being covered by mainstream/traditional media (newspapers, TV channels, online news sites)"

Which seems to explicitly cover "newspaper front pages" as an exception.

darrenf• 5 years ago

This seems to be explicitly covered in the post, here:

We will always try to assess the context in which the content is shared and, in such cases, we may allow the images or videos to remain on the service. For instance, we would take into consideration whether the image is publicly available and/or is being covered by mainstream/traditional media (newspapers, TV channels, online news sites), or if a particular image and the accompanying tweet text adds value to the public discourse, is being shared in public interest, or is relevant to the community.

none_to_remain• 5 years ago

Pretty wordy way of saying "Who, whom?"

micromacrofoot• 5 years ago

this is how it works in the US too, if you’re in public I can take a photo of you and use it in a lot of ways, I could print a copy and hand it to everyone on earth, but if it’s commercial you will need a signed release form

robbedpeter2• 5 years ago

Consent is implicitly given when you are in public. That's what "public" means, legally. It's a place where there is no expectation of privacy, which by moving into willingly, you are giving up any expectations of privacy willingly. By conducting yourself in public, you are consenting to the loss of privacy.

Twitter should be fine if they're operating under local definitions of legal consent. If they're going to roll their own, things could get legally ugly - paparazzi could have legitimate claims of discrimination and financial damages.

tidenly• 5 years ago

This isn't true everywhere though. You have the right to control over your likeness being posted where I live, people can't just post your face on the internet no matter where you are, public or not.

hbn• 5 years ago

Well this sounds like a good way to perhaps put a damper on all the cancelling

We will always try to assess the context in which the content is shared and, in such cases, we may allow the images or videos to remain on the service. For instance, we would take into consideration whether the image is publicly available and/or is being covered by mainstream/traditional media (newspapers, TV channels, online news sites), or if a particular image and the accompanying tweet text adds value to the public discourse, is being shared in public interest, or is relevant to the community.

Oh, never mind. It's now only allowed in situations of cancelling people.

kordlessagain• 5 years ago

Accounts on Twitter are not provably "people" and even the ones that are demonstrably a given personal identity are not necessarily or provably run and operated by that identity, exclusively. Thus, claiming any type of "canceling" of a "voice" or "identity" is a logical fallacy, given there is no proof of identity occurring on Twitter in any meaningful way.

This logic comes about because of bad assumptions about what a platform is, how it works at scale and how personal rights and liberties are mapped to Internet services, especially those of government. Promoting the idea of "cancel culture" among the population is definitely a thing and easily digested and accepted as a truth, even thought it's really not.

syshum2• 5 years ago

I am not sure how any of your comment disproved cancel culture

Cancel Culture is a form of targeted harassment, generally originating online but not exclusive to that domain, where a group of individuals take offense to comments, opinions, jokes or "hot takes" then having become offend proceed either in coordination with others or not to contact the target of their harassment employers, landlords, business associates, family members, schools, etc in an effort to interfere with the relationships (personal or business) they have with the target of the harassment.

It is very much real, it is very much a reality, and it goes beyond simply "boycotts" of a business with a policy one dislikes.

People continuing to deny the existence of cancel culture highlights either an extreme ignorance of the modern world, or a willful disingenuous gaslighting in order to aid and continue to perpetuate cancel culture. I will leave it open to debate which of the 2 you are.

SpicyLemonZest• 5 years ago

The specific concern here is the phenomenon where people post viral videos of others they had a disagreement with in order to try and publicly shame them. I don’t want to insist on calling this “cancel culture” if you don’t like the label, but it’s definitely a real thing and the targets face real off-Twitter consequences.

JamesBarney2• 5 years ago

Cancelling seems to refer to two types of actions, deplatforming, and punishing people for saying things you disagree with.

I don't know why deplatforming requires proof of an identity. I think this is you adding to the definition of a word that doesn't follow how everyone uses it.

ibejoeb2• 5 years ago

SoHo Karen is ok. Project Veritas is not.

gorwell2• 5 years ago

Indeed, `Twitter Safety` is explicit about their bias.

`Feeling safe on Twitter is different for everyone` and `The misuse of private media can affect everyone, but can have a disproportionate effect on women, activists, dissidents, and members of minority communities.`

voxic11• 5 years ago

This policy almost seems to be put in place as a response to everyone posting images of ghislaine maxwell with various politicians...

paulgb• 5 years ago

How so? It seems like politicians would certainly be covered by this exception:

This policy is not applicable to media featuring public figures or individuals when media and accompanying Tweet text are shared in the public interest or add value to public discourse.

I think this is more an attempt at blocking targeted harassment of private individuals.

makeworld• 5 years ago

media of private individuals without the permission of the person(s) depicted

This is opposition to photography laws in the US and many other countries, that allows the publishing of photographs of private individuals, as long as they can be viewed from a public space.

detaro2• 5 years ago

Not really "opposition", just further restriction than those laws have.

mynameishere• 5 years ago

This will allow them to selectively destroy whoever they want with their technology. Someone like Amy Cooper will turn out to be a public figure--Hunter Biden not so much.

jcadam2• 5 years ago

Well, shoot everybody knows who you are now that that drunken tweet of yours from three years ago went viral thanks to a twitter rage mob. So, we reckon that makes you a public figure.

andrew_• 5 years ago

Timing is interesting; the day after Jack steps down.

mherdeg• 5 years ago

Yeah this is interesting - street photography has historically not involved a lot of consent, and photographers who professionally shoot in public have generally defended their right to do so.

Consider e.g. every photo in https://www.magnumphotos.com/shop/collections/books/rfk-fune... or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-J_Day_in_Times_Square -- those folks didn't consent and can't. It's not newsworthy, it's just artistically interesting. Fair enough if Twitter doesn't want to be a platform for it.

namlem• 5 years ago

The woman in the photo didn't consent to the kiss either apparently.

justinclift• 5 years ago

From the wikipedia article, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-J_Day_in_Times_Square:

The photograph does not clearly show the face of either person involved, and numerous people have claimed to be the subjects.

golemotron6• 5 years ago

This is an unpopular view but I think that photos of strangers in public are a vital illumination of humanity. You see in people's faces, in the moment, the drama of excitement, love, apathy, boredom, anger - the full range of emotion and what it means to be a human in the world. Actors in movies or staged photos never give us that. They never glow in the way that a person in the street does who is surprised by a friend.

Despite the take that these public photographs are "privacy" violations, I think they should be celebrated. Societally, we should get over ourselves a bit.

gjulianm5• 5 years ago

Despite the take that these public photographs are "privacy" violations, I think they should be celebrated

I don't know why your enjoyment of a photo should take priority over the right to privacy of people. In a world where anything could become a meme overnight, I would very much prefer my image to not be tweeted publicly without my consent, specially by people with a large audience.

If the photographer wants to portray those emotions, make the photo and ask later, and delete them if the person doesn't want to have a picture taken of. I understand that for most people the risks will outweigh the benefits.

cageface• 5 years ago

I'm inclined to agree with you but the fact that people can now be trivially identified through face recognition in photos changes the considerations here a bit.

Analemma_• 5 years ago

This isn’t actually going to be used against most people posting street photographs, just the ones Twitter wants to get rid of for which there isn’t already a tool in the TOS they can selectively apply. Goodthinkful citizens will not be affected.

dsizzle4• 5 years ago

It seems even more restrictive than that -- the person (or some authority) has to notify Twitter and request its removal. It's focused on preventing doxxing and abuse.

When we are notified by individuals depicted, or by an authorized representative, that they did not consent to having their private image or video shared, we will remove it. This policy is not applicable to media featuring public figures or individuals when media and accompanying Tweet text are shared in the public interest or add value to public discourse.

https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2021/private-i...

hn_throwaway_99• 5 years ago

I mean, as I understand it, this policy would only apply if the person in question objected to their picture being taken and disseminated.

And, to be honest, I'm probably OK with that. At the very least I am not convinced by older arguments of "you shouldn't have any expectations of privacy in a public place". I think there is a fundamental difference between other people being able to see you, heck even other people being able to take a picture of you, vs. it automatically being OK for others to disseminate your imagine to literally billions of people, recorded for all time.

dsizzle4• 5 years ago

Yes. See their announcement https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2021/private-i...:

When we are notified by individuals depicted, or by an authorized representative, that they did not consent to having their private image or video shared, we will remove it. This policy is not applicable to media featuring public figures or individuals when media and accompanying Tweet text are shared in the public interest or add value to public discourse.

ryandrake• 5 years ago

As someone who has been fighting a Sisyphean battle to minimize the Internet footprint/exposure of his photo and other bits of private life, this is a welcome change. So far, in order to keep your face off the internet, you need to 1. Not take pictures of yourself and post them, and 2. Make sure each and every one of your friends know you don't want your photo posted and that they respect your wishes. #2 was a lot easier when everyone in the world didn't have a camera in their pocket at all hours of the day. And, yes, I deliberately ask friends and family to just not post my picture to Social Media, and they constantly forget. With the ubiquity of traffic cameras, business surveillance, Ring door cameras, and so on, it's getting to the point where if you want to keep private, you need to never leave the house, which, sorry, I think is an unreasonable request.

It would be wonderful if I could just generate some perceptual hash of my face, upload that hash to social media sites, and be able to demand they delete (or black out) any instance of my face they find. Yes, this could be abused, but the status quo (no privacy for anyone without exceedingly great OpSec) is worse.

nicbou• 5 years ago

That's how the law work in Germany and I'm okay with it. Ot puts a damper on the /r/publicfreakout type of internet bullying.

agallant• 5 years ago

True, but it was also relatively harder for pictures to become famous, and there wasn't massive face recognition systems to use the data in unexpected ways. Also, a lot more people are taking pictures, and though I'm not art-gatekeeping, it's fair to say that at least the motivational context for most photography is different now than it was historically.

stevesearer• 5 years ago

We've had people try to take photos of our children without consent while we are at the beach. The people were thinking the kids were doing something cute or that it was funny they were throwing a huge fit.

There does seem to be some difference between being the subject in a photo and happening to be in a being in a photo of a beach sunset.

chrismcb2• 5 years ago

There have been plenty of time I've seen some cute kids doing something cute. But it feels creepy to take pics of kids you don't know, as the main subject. On the other hand if im taking photos of something else, while I try not to get random people in the shot, but if I do...

golemotron6• 5 years ago

How does Twitter know whether someone has consented or not? They don't. It will start with takedowns due to people claiming that their pic was shown without permission and end with a de facto ban of photos of people. Way it goes.

lovemenot2• 5 years ago

I don't know how Twitter plans to implement this, but I believe they could try to do so in good faith and using automation.

1. Target identifies disputed photo of themself.

2. Twitter issues a dispute ID / QR

3. Target sends in a fresh selfie with the dispute ID printed or on a screen alongside.

4. Twitter performs face analysis of both images and OCR of ID.

5. If faces match and ID is validated, Twitter takes down the disputed image.

golemotron6• 5 years ago

And it will be weaponized immediately to destroy citizen journalism.

eyelidlessness2• 5 years ago

There is literally no way Twitter will enforce this rule so heavy handedly. Especially since Tumblr, but even without that case study to learn from… a social media platform without human photos is so laughable a concept that I chuckled typing out those words.

d1sxeyes2• 5 years ago

I seem to be in something of a minority here but I think this is eminently reasonable.

Almost certainly this will be enforced only following a report. Which means I have a photograph of you which you did not consent to being in and you object to me sharing.

I think in that case it's reasonable to expect me to justify why I should be allowed to share the picture. And I may be able to, but the burden of proof should be on me.

onepointsixC• 5 years ago

Which means I have a photograph of you which you did not consent to being in and you object to me sharing.

Then it's impossible to take pictures of public spaces. There's a reason why you do not have the benefit of privacy in a public space.

shkkmo2• 5 years ago

That is fear mongering. Nothing stops you from taking the pictures, nothing stops you from posting the pictures. It only provides a mechanism to allow the unposting of specific reported pictures from twitter. You have to see one heck of a slippery slope to see this policy and jump immediately to "it's impossible to take pictures of public places.'

d1sxeyes2• 5 years ago

No-one's saying that, those are two bold, unsupported assertions.

Point number 1: Even if you stretch hard, the closest I can get is 'it wouldn't be permitted to take pictures of public spaces with people in who don't consent to being photographed and then share those on Twitter'.

Point number 2: It is true that in some countries, you have no (legal) expectation of privacy in a public place. However, it's not universally true. Where I am, for example, in Hungary, actually something very similar to Twitter's new policy is the law[0]).

Although there may be no LEGAL constraint where you live, perhaps you wouldn't want someone standing outside the local reproductive health or women's shelter photographing everyone who goes in and out. I certainly wouldn't.

What I'm saying is that if someone has a photograph of me which I didn't consent to being in, then I think it's reasonable that if I object to them sharing they photo, then they should have the 'burden of proof' that they have a right to share.

I don't think that 'burden of proof' needs to be particularly high, and 'oh, they're just in the background in my photo of the street' or 'I thought it might be interesting that they were snorting cocaine on the main street' is OK.

The problem is that 'public spaces' and 'benefit of privacy' are terms that date back to before the internet.

The trivial difficulty and cost of creating, processing, distributing, and cataloguing data through facial recognition, geolocation, etc. today means it's at least worth considering whether these laws are the best fit for our modern lives, rather than throwing out criticisms as though one specific law is both written in stone and applies everywhere.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/14/hungary-law-ph...

xanaxagoras• 5 years ago

This will be enforced selectively to target both journalism Twitter finds inconvenient and political information that doesn't adhere to their politics. I'm glad I moved on from that dumpster fire some time ago.

bedhead2• 5 years ago

Good news citizens of San Francisco and Chicago, your looting/shoplifting epidemic is about to vanish completely! Antifa riots? What are those? I mean, if you can't post pics and videos on Twitter, did it even really happen?

The next step is Twitter will have a formal list of approved media outlets (gee I wonder which ones it might be) where if they publish it first, Twitter will allow it. Selective reporting seems to be one of the primary tools for media bias/activism, and this is Twitter figuring out their own way to selectively ban content they don't like instead of the current user generated openness.

commandlinefan2• 5 years ago

It doesn't entirely work until they manage step 3: make Twitter (and Google, Facebook and Amazon) the entirety of the internet. We saw some movements in that direction when Amazon and Apple colluded to remove the Parler Twitter competitor app. They don't (yet) control enough of the internet routing infrastructure to complete their vision, but it's definitely coming.

vineyardmike• 5 years ago

Is parler supposed to just be a “Twitter competitor” now? Is that really an intellectually honest way to describe it and why it was removed?

2OEH8eoCRo03• 5 years ago

Don't get your information from Twitter. I don't. :)

dilap3• 5 years ago

Best source I've found. What do you use?

gorwell2• 5 years ago

A former NYT tech reporter is calling it the `Andy Ngo law`.

https://twitter.com/NellieBowles/status/1465724183044841473

It does seem crafted to gatekeep citizen journalists who are a major thorn in the corporate media's official narrative.

native_samples• 5 years ago

Specifically, Ngo posted a lot of videos of BLM riots, and mugshots of people arrested for said rioting, to show they weren't black and in fact were often teachers, government employees etc. Well the establishment didn't like that at all.

Ngo: "Oregon lawmakers introduced a bill to stop public record access to arrest photographs after I documented who was arrested at the riots last year."

And now Twitter introduces this new policy the day after Jack resigns. Presumably stopping people like Ngo tweeting about arrested people had been a long term desire of the internal faction whose ascent is now complete with the new CEO, so bye bye videos of peaceful protests!

bedhead2• 5 years ago

Funny, the moment I first read this I also called it Andy Ngo Law and quipped to a friend that Twitter finally figured out how to shut him down.

Talanes2• 5 years ago

As a San Franciscan, Twitter is the only place I see anyone worried about a looting epidemic. And my peer group is literally "Union Square retail worker," so we're kind of the people everyone keeps telling me are the most freaked out.

samuelizdat• 5 years ago

Will this drive an increase traffic to things like the fediverse? If it drives people away, is this not good? If hegemonic tech-giants wish to over bureaucratize everything, is the ethical response to decentralize?

vorpalhex• 5 years ago

A fair amount of people will never leave twitter, and this will only work to continue to keep them disconnected from reality by selectively filtering more information.

wly_cdgr• 5 years ago

Super lame

jcadam2• 5 years ago

These rules seem targeted at independent/citizen journalists like Andy Ngo.

jawns• 5 years ago

Imagine if you take a picture of police doing something wrong in a public place with no legal expectation of privacy, and someone who happens to be in the photo, bystander or not, objects to being photographed under this policy.

IanCal3• 5 years ago

Wouldn't that fall under:

This policy is not applicable to media featuring public figures or individuals when media and accompanying Tweet text are shared in the public interest or add value to public discourse.

eyelidlessness2• 5 years ago

1. It’s not clear, at least to me, that this applies to police. They’re employed by the public, but I don’t know if I’d associate them with the common colloquial usage of public figures. That could just be me misunderstanding that usage.

2. The parent comment was about other, private individuals in the same photo. Given Twitter’s very spotty track record of inconsistent moderation (regardless of any real or perceived bias), any grey area here will certainly be a target—whether or not a successful one—for abuse of this new rule. I can, for instance, easily imagine it being used in an attempt to suppress images/video of police responses to confrontations between BLM protestors and pick-your-counterprotestors.

3. Moreover, I can imagine fabricated claims of such moderation action being taken, sewing all sorts of disinformation about events—real or likewise fabricated—and information about them that never existed, or existed in a significantly different form.

4. While I’m generally more in favor [than probably the average HN reader] of privately owned websites being able to moderate their sites as they deem appropriate… this particular example is the first I thought of where this rule as written may have significant, harmful consequences.

commandlinefan2• 5 years ago

take a picture of police doing something wrong

This is Twitter we're talking about. Trust me, if you take a picture of police doing something wrong (or even appearing to have done something wrong) Twitter will find a way to make sure the rules don't apply to that picture.

NoblePublius• 5 years ago

So if I film you, say, bashing my head with a skateboard before I shoot you in defense of my life, Twitter will delete the video upon your request?

brutal_chaos_• 5 years ago

This seems like it aids Police with free speech violating takedown requests. Police want that footage taken off Twitter, the officer only needs to tell Twitter they don't consent. Not that Twitter is a bastion of free speech, but law enforcement can just ask companies to act on their behalf. No violation. And Twitter is shielded from lawsuits.

(IANAL, these are my admittedly simple and probably naïve assumptions)

Edit: words

throwawaysea• 5 years ago

This seems like a policy change that targets Project Veritas. Not surprising since many of their leaks have been damaging to the political left, which Twitter and its employees (including the old and new CEOs) are politically biased towards.

The exemptions they have set aside will be abused to allow things like leaks of Trump’s tax returns while silencing videos showing CNN’s biased electoral manipulation of viewers:

This policy is not applicable to media featuring public figures or individuals when media and accompanying Tweet text are shared in the public interest or add value to public discourse.

Expanding our private information policy to include media

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