It’s become so common to be recorded and posted on social media for everyone to see.
For most people, it’s not questioned. They’re too focused on the entertainment of it.
However, filming people without their consent on social media has become so normalized, but people are too blinded by the content of the video to think to themselves, ‘Does this person even know they are being filmed?’ and don’t realize how unethical it is.
In 2022, a woman in Melbourne, Australia, was filmed without her consent and felt dehumanized.
TikTok creator Harrison Pawluk uploaded a TikTok of himself handing the woman flowers in a public space without her knowing that she was being filmed.
The comments were filled with people feeling sympathetic to her and saying that she probably needed those flowers, not knowing the whole story.
In this example, the woman, named Maree, was just enjoying her quiet time when Pawluk came up to her. She says that it’s a patronizing assumption that women, especially older women, would be thrilled by a stranger giving them flowers.
When people are recorded by strangers and get posted on social media without their consent, viewers are sometimes shown a false story without knowing the true story. This is very inconsiderate and cruel of the people recording.
A person being recorded could just be enjoying their day and being about, whereas some people could be going through a hard day or struggling with a difficult matter.
For example, someone could be going through grief, and someone records themselves doing a good deed for them, such as handing them a kind handwritten note or a gift, and uploads it on social media, unaware of the situation the person was going through, and putting their personal life on display.
Regardless, these people are recorded without even being aware of it and are posted on social media for all to see and comment about.
Everyone deserves for their privacy not to be invaded when they go out in public.
To combat this issue, however, it should first be addressed as a problem by society and then further combated to fix it.
Viewers of these types of videos should call out the creators who record and start to denormalize this type of content so people don’t fall for its possible misinformation or invasion of privacy.
