Madison Square Garden's surveillance banned this fan over his T-shirt design

https://www.theverge.com/news/637228/madison-square-garden-james-dolan-facial-recognition-fan-ban

by helloworld • 1 year ago

219 86 1 year ago

zfg6• 1 year ago

[flagged]

If people these days were human—rather than erect animals—they’d boycott companies like this into bankruptcy. The eternal consoomer just lies down and takes it.

mingus882• 1 year ago

This is not a 1st amendment issue.

This is a late stage capitalism issue where too much power has been consolidated into the hands of too few, and so much as a single comment made publicly can blacklist you from participating in any cultural event for the rest of your life.

Think of how many radio stations, venues, internet channels etc have been bought up by megacorp.

We have all the bad parts of a Gibson cyberpunk dystopia and none of the flying cars or bio-enhancements.

zfg6• 1 year ago

This is not a 1st amendment issue.

It absolutely is. Freedom of speech means free speakers. If you're going to face petty punishments for the rest of your days because your criticized the "wrong" people then you are not a free speaker.

If you're serious about a free society that means you have to cop criticism, disrespect, and even mockery, most especially and particularly if you're in a position of power.

ysofunny• 1 year ago

it's a 1st ammendment issue

in the sense in which the entire constitutional apparatus is falling appart

because citizen-president Trump is a power bully

but this was bound to happen. as we transition from orality to literacy to digital-literacy and beyond

consider why the laws are written down. consider the way language became computer languages. and then realize that what was written down must now grapple with the new technological paradigm of digital paper that writes on itself

it's like we have (re-)discovered paper and the very idea of writing down the law is a techno-social innovation sweeping the land

harimau7772• 1 year ago

While that may be technically correct I don't think it's actually correct. Just because it doesn't violate the 1st amendment doesn't mean it doesn't violate free speech.

Democracy isn't just a form of government, it is also a type of society. Part of being a democratic society is that people are generally able to respectfully express themselves without fear of being punished for unpopular opinions.

Jiro• 1 year ago

I seem to recall that when conservatives were getting banned from social media (or any place else), the prevailing attitude was "it's a private company, and they don't owe you anything, so they can ban someone for any reason they want." Now when it's a sympathetic target suddenly nobody is saying that? People are even invoking the First Amendment, which was laughed at back then.

harimau7772• 1 year ago

The difference is that conservatives generally get banned for being disrespectful and hateful. E.g. conservatives generally don't get banned for saying that they disagree with gay marriage, they get banned for using slurs, insulting people, etc.

thrance• 1 year ago

The difference is conservatives voices were always the ones getting the most exposure online. Their whining back then was purely political and completely unfounded. And now that they're in power and actively censoring people, it should be apparent to all how this constant appeal to free speech and the 1st amendment was deeply hypocritical.

ranger_danger• 1 year ago

Big fat warning that there is absolutely no proof of why they were banned, the title is very misleading.

arielsaldana• 1 year ago

Did you read the article? It clearly states what Mikyl Cordova wrote lol.

djmips• 1 year ago

BTW did you read where that was a later edit?

mcphage• 1 year ago

So you’re thinking it’s even more petty than what the article said? Woah.

hello_computer3• 1 year ago

If somebody did that to my kid, I wouldn’t be enjoying any shows there, ever. Absolute cattle.

acomjean• 1 year ago

They seem to get away with it. The fact the did it to a lawyer preciously. If they had to pay millions in damages for this nonsense, this would stop.

The fact that the “security” team is going through online images to feed into there facial recognition banning software is kind of weird and creepy.

I look forward to continuing to not going to MSG and company, as they are far far away from me.

Valodim3• 1 year ago

The fact that the “security” team is going through online images to feed into there facial recognition banning software is kind of weird and creepy.

Why would any team go through anything? I'm sure can just ask AI to maintain a list of offenders, fully automated. So much more efficient.

hettygreen• 1 year ago

I'm sure this is just an isolated incident and we won't see anything like this happening in the future.

comrh• 1 year ago

It's not surprising as James Dolan is a pretty notorious asshole.

beng-nl• 1 year ago

For anyone who might enjoy a compilation of some radio hosts making fun of some stunts he has pulled: https://youtu.be/QMvWHg7heAU?si=E0QP0Onxtz3apW_d

userbinator• 1 year ago

His behavior was disrespectful and disruptive and in violation of our code of conduct.

Certainly not the first time a vague and imposing "code of conduct" has caused trouble.

neilv• 1 year ago

“Frank Miller Jr. made threats against an MSG executive on social media and produced and sold merchandise that was offensive in nature,” Mikyl Cordova, executive vice president of communications and marketing for the company, said in an emailed statement.

If he made threats, what were the threats?

If he didn't make threats, does this written statement, from a communications executive, to a journalist, intended for news publication, constitute libel?

zonkerdonker• 1 year ago

I'm not a lawyer by any means, but I don't see how it wouldn't be.

But realistically, how worth it would it be for this graphic designer to battle a narcissistic, petty billionaire in court?

US civil court is truly fucked. Criminal as well, for that matter. Ok, the entire judicial branch really. And the executive branch, and legislative, law enforcement, public health, education....

As an aside, what's the easiest country in the EU for immigration?

pjc502• 1 year ago

easiest country in the EU for immigration?

Since the Mediterranean crisis and the Ukraine crisis: none. Although Ireland won't impose a language requirement so you might start there.

t0mas882• 1 year ago

Netherlands if you qualify as a knowledge worker, which is super easy for anyone with a university degree. This could change since the new government isn't very enthusiastic about it, but for now it's a straight "Welcome and here is a 30% tax break for your first 5 years" as long as you meet a quite low minimum income number. And even lower if you come in on a student visum first, they recognise that a starter job is lower paid.

ben_w• 1 year ago

As an aside, what's the easiest country in the EU for immigration?

The one(s) whose language(s) you already speak, unless you're rich enough for an investor visa: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigrant_investor_programs#In...

(While Germany may be tempting especially with all the English used in tourist areas, be aware it's not for nothing that native German speakers use in real life a phrase which translates as "The German language is difficult").

Most of the EU, but not Denmark or Ireland, also theoretically have the Blue Card scheme; but I say "theoretically" because that's a bureaucratic streamlining, the actual granting is still done at national level and from what I've heard different countries grant them at different rates: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Card_(European_Union)

Livanskoy• 1 year ago

Russia is easy to immigrate to for anyone sharing traditional values. Rich culture, English-friendly, big opportunities for specialists. Weather is not perfect, but the Global Warming is working on it. One of the last islands of sanity in those wild times.

I've seen another American Village project near Moscow a few days ago, they do most of the hard work for you and help with the formalities. Houses are nice too. Not my cup of tea personally — I'm more of a city dweller — but the people there looked happy.

yard2010• 1 year ago

Yes.

tstrimple• 1 year ago

Way too much circle jerking in this thread over what the first amendment means as if people a few hundred years ago had a better grasp on what is right and wrong in today’s context than anyone living and breathing and thinking today. In my opinion the deference given to what long dead people wrote is a cause of many of this country’s problems. It’s supposed to be a living constitution and we’re still trying to divine what those dead people meant by their more obscure statements with a radically different context than what we have face today.

hallway_monitor• 1 year ago

I don’t give a shit about first amendment interpretations and I agree completely that laws need an update. How about this: ban biometric detection. Ban facial recognition. Throw the CEO in jail if a company breaks the ban. That would be a good use of government power. Fuck the surveillance state, it’s not a place I want to live - and we don’t have to accept it.

hello_computer3• 1 year ago

i’d go a step further

https://youtu.be/TMHCw3RqulY

blacksmith_tb• 1 year ago

You can move to Portland![1] (also, our cherry trees are blooming, very pretty)

1: https://www.cnet.com/news/politics/portland-passes-the-tough...

gorgoiler• 1 year ago

If they pulled Miller out of the line and only then checked his photo ID, and the allegation is they used facial recognition to trigger this, then that implies they already had his biometrics in their database.

The legal disclaimer shown at the venue implies that the biometrics are collected (and “retained, stored, and converted”) at the venue. That’s clearly only half of the story. They must also be collecting (and retaining, storing, and converting) information about anyone using sources outside the venue.

The implication from chronology of the story is that MSG must have done something like googled Miller, found his LinkedIn bio-pic, and put that in their “safety and security” database?

I think we can conclude therefore that the disclaimer sign is not a quasi-legal disclaimer to let the venue record your face, but in fact a canard to divert your attention from the fact that they have already created records linking your face to your name — records created without your consent and without letting you know they did it.

conradfr• 1 year ago

They scrap adversarial law firms websites for photos of employees to ban them so yeah.

t0mas882• 1 year ago

Is that legal? This would be a clear GDPR violation in Europe.

You could probably argue a legitimate interest if you're collecting face recognition data on proven hooligans, but scraping pictures of people that have not been to your venue off a website clearly isn't a legitimate interest for such privacy invasion.

mixmastamyk• 1 year ago

Speculating but likely these beforehand records are added manually.

ungreased0675• 1 year ago

It feels like this should be illegal.

K0balt• 1 year ago

iTT: as new group of people banned from MSG properties lol.

Arcuru• 1 year ago

Is there an image of the shirt?

I assume that embedded Instagram post is a pic of the shirt, but I don't have Instagram so it's a big blank box with a link to "View this post on Instagram".

It's ironic that on this post about a large corporation abusing its power, they are requiring the user to use Instagram to get the full context..

Valodim3• 1 year ago

It is a fairly plain shirt with a basketball design that reads "Ban Dolan"

try_the_bass4• 1 year ago

I don't understand why there's so much focus on facial recognition on this article?

The guy's name was known from social media, and his name was on his ticket, presumably. He was then asked for his ID to verify his identity (confirm he was the person on the list), and then kicked out.

I don't see where in that any kind of facial recognition was necessary?

Henchman213• 1 year ago

IIRC, he didn’t even buy the ticket? At no point was his name used in the transaction, so how exactly did they know this person was at MSG in the first place? The conjecture is facial recognition.

try_the_bass4• 1 year ago

Miller says that after he scanned his digital ticket, but before he went through security, a person working at Radio City stopped the line, pulled him aside, and asked him for his ID to verify who he was.

Most venues require a name on the ticket, and many will validate that the person holding the ticket is the person who is named on the ticket.

This is a very common anti-scalping measure.

moioci• 1 year ago

There must be many thousands of people named Frank Miller, Jr. So something in addition to the name had to be used.

try_the_bass4• 1 year ago

That's why they pulled him aside and asked for his ID?

conover• 1 year ago

Isn’t this the deal we’ve made? You can, legally, deny someone access to private property for any non-protected reason.

On the other hand, if the private property was constructed with public monies, which MSG probably was, that’s an interesting debate. Should the involvement of public money confer first amendment protections of some sort? I think it should.

Edit: You can’t use “my” money to build something and then ban me from it because I said something (non-protected) about the CEO of the company that owns it.

HackerThemAll• 1 year ago

American Dream (TM). Freedom of speech at its best.

cyberge99• 1 year ago

Congress should pass bipartisan legislation that people in this situation, albeit rare, get a full refund at a minimum, or at least be able to predetermine if they’re banned.

Madison Square Garden's surveillance banned this fan over his T-shirt design

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