A digitial video society is a… November 28, 2011
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Culture.trackback
There’s an old saw on the libertarian right which I’ve never entirely disliked, that ‘an armed society is a polite society’. How that pans out in actuality is a different matter. But what of a society where everyone, or near enough everyone has access, continual, to video cameras and the ability to stream it to the net. From pepper spraying cops to this depressing incident here is this going to soften peoples coughs?
working in community media i have a definite interest in how this plays out – what people will be doing with all these cameras and who will be watching i think will have a big impact on the society we have.
But the change is pretty profound. I was at the Occupy Dame Street fundraiser on Saturday night – or at least the start of it where the hip hop artists played and before the DJs drove away the elderly and infirm such as myself. RTE had a two person camera crew in the middle of the small crowd filming a documentary of some form. But when you looked around the room there were 4 or 5 other digital video cameras and maybe 15 phones held out filming the gig – in a crowd of perhaps 40 people. Whether some of these were livestreaming the music or all were going to upload it to various networks in various forms later on it struck me how slow and cumbersome, and in some ways irrelevant (at least to irish hiphop ;-0) the rte crew was.
He dynamics on the team were intriguing to, not so much community solidarity though there was some if that as much as an effort to shut down the rant. Interesting to see the aftermath.
‘the’ dynamics in the ‘tram’…. Natch!
Btw re the music if it’s too loud you’re too old, or you’ve good hearing!
article from the garduian saying the london met has the technology to nullify mobile phones turn them off remotely etc http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/oct/30/metropolitan-police-mobile-phone-surveillance
That woman is also clearly guilty of being intoxicated in charge of a toddler
Well done to the person who filmed and uploaded that.
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/11853/
A society of snitches and self enforced police state.
Trolling are we?
Racism should never be tolerated. End of.
There’s a difference between not tolerating racism (which is what several people did — and fair play to them); and getting the obviously mentally-ill mother of a small child snatched up by the cops.
Fair play to the people on the tram that told her to shut up; bad cess to the mob that ratted her out to the cops
Laughable,
Why do you say that she’s obviously mentally ill? Maybe she is, maybe she isn’t, maybe we all are, who knows, she doesn’t have a “mentally ill” sticker on her jacket or anything. On the evidence of that video I don’t see mental illness. I see probable intoxication. I see abusive verbal behaviour. I see racism.
I won’t disagree with you about the aspects of the case that the Spiked article I pointed to above deals with, the witch hunt.
However, I do think it’s a positive that she will be sanctioned for her racist behaviour, although I don’t think she should be burnt at the stake or anything.
LeftAtTheCross, why do I think she’s mentally ill? I’m not sure. I shouldn’t have said _obviously_ mentally ill on reflection. I should have said possibly.
1. Watch how she moves her lower mouth.
2. Why would someone randomly start abusing fellow passengers? Most racists are pretty smart about toeing the line in public and only let it out with “jokes” or voting for sending the army in to bomb another “Islamic” country.
Aside from that I don’t think getting the police involved in whether someone expresses racism is positive no matter how much I abhor racism. The proper response was the one from the passengers who told her to shut it.
Laughable,
I take your point about most racists hiding their hatred in public but I’ve certainly seen similar incidents to the one in question over the years on public transport in London and Dublin.
As for the proper response, well she broke the law and was filmed doing it. no ambiguity there. It’s a law I approve of, no difficulty there either. The proper response was to inform the police, in my opinion.
Of couse if she was a guy the proper response would have been to give him a mild kicking first, off camera, and then shop him to the police.
I like the ‘You’re African, why don’t you go back to Nicaragua or wherevah?’ line.