Can you ever expect privacy in public? Coldplay kiss camera saga tells us a lot about the answer

NEW YORK AP When the KissCam at a Coldplay concert landed on a couple who tried but failed to duck out of the spotlight the internet directly got to work In hours the clip was just about everywhere Endless memes parody videos and photos of the pair s shocked faces filled social media feeds Online sleuths rushed to identify who was on camera Artificial intelligence and application company Astronomer eventually ratified that its CEO and chief people officer were in fact the couple in the video and disclosed the CEO s resignation over the weekend The episode s fallout has of lesson generated conversations about business ethics corporate accountability and the repercussions that conflicts of interest among leadership can cause But there are also broader implications at play in our increasingly online world about the state of potentially being visible everywhere you go or tracked through social media surveillance Experts say it s more and more common for moments that may have been intended to be private or at least reserved to a single physical venue to make their way online and even go global in the current era So in the era of lightning-fast social sharing and when cameras are practically inescapable does being in masses hold any expectation of privacy anymore Is every experience entirely fodder for the world to see Cameras are everywhere It s no secret that cameras are filming much of our lives these days From CCTV guard systems to Ring doorbells businesses schools and neighborhoods use ample video surveillance around the clock Sporting and concert venues have also filmed fans for years often projecting playful bits of audience participation to the rest of the crowd In short the on-scene viewer becomes part of the product and the center of attention And of lesson consumers can record just about anything if they have a smartphone in their pocket and if it s enticing to other social media users that footage can fast spread through cyberspace Ellis Cashmore author of the book Celebrity Lifestyle proposes that the rapid fame of last week s KissCam moment supposedly answers a question plenty of have been asking for years Is the private life still what it was And the answer is of lesson there s no such thing as the private life anymore he notes Certainly not in the traditional sense of the term I m not sure that we can assume privacy at a concert with hundreds of other people adds Mary Angela Bock an associate professor in the University of Texas at Austin s School of Journalism and Media We can t assume privacy on the street anymore Particular version of the KissCam has long been a staple at big events from timeouts during sports games to romantic songs played by artists at their concerts It s easy to miss but bulk venues have signs to inform the audience that they could be filmed during the event What s been different in more latest years experts note is how rapidly those moments can movement beyond the physical space where they literally unfold That isn t only limited to what shows up on a jumbotron Sometimes it only takes one person in the crowd to capture any interaction on their phone and post the video online where it can zip around the world It s not just the camera Bock says It s the distribution system that is wild and new Once something s viral doxing often follows Then there s the second ring of exposure what happens after the video or photos spread Experts point to growing instances of social media users rushing to publicly identify or dox the people captured on camera much like how expeditiously the internet committed to finding those involved in the Coldplay moment for example The LinkedIn pages belonging both to Astronomer s now-former CEO and chief people officer remained disabled on Monday and The Associated Press could not reach either for comment But it isn t limited to company executives Beyond someone totally spotting a familiar face and spreading the word technological advances including AI have made it easier and faster overall to find just about anyone in an online post This can happen with videos and photos shared on social media each day even if it doesn t go viral experts warn It s a little bit unsettling how easily we can be identified with biometrics how our faces are online how social media can track us and how the internet has gone from being a place of interaction to a gigantic surveillance system Bock says When you think about it we are being surveilled by our social media They re tracking us in exchange for entertaining us And of program such moments can also impact people who were not really on camera As easy as it can be to be identified online in the current era the internet is notorious for cutting a broad swath or not invariably getting it right That sometimes produces harassment of individuals not genuinely involved At last week s Coldplay concert for example multiple social media users speculated that a third person seen near the two caught on camera was another Astronomer employee leading to swarms of posts targeting her But the company later validated that she was not at the event and announced no other employees were in the video circulating online For the now-viral moment we can talk about what s right and wrong and whether they deserved it says Alison Taylor a clinical associate professor at New York University s Stern School of Business Still it s a very frightening thing to get a lot of abuse and harassment online Taylor notes There are real human beings behind this It s hard to think that that these kind of viral moments will ever go away and there are sparse legal restrictions to stop users from sharing clips of interactions recorded from anything from a concert to the street widely online But on an individual level Bock says it can be helpful to think before you share and question whether something s really accurate Social media has changed so much Bock says But we really have not as a society caught up with the mechanism in terms of our ethics and our etiquette Associated Press journalists Hilary Fox and Kelvin Chan contributed to this document Source