Posted by
Shogrensus on Friday, April 20, 2007 2:27:28 PM
In one of the more interesting segments recently, Whoopi Goldberg noted that the advent of cell phones with video capability has changed the reality of our lives in some very scary ways:
***
Whoopi: You know what I discovered over the weekend though? I did a show in Maine and I saw all these folks with cameras and their cell phones and I thought you know what-now I am editing
Rosie: Yes For YouTube
Whoopi: Yes because I don’t want it to end up on YouTube out of context. We’re in a very strange flux right now
Elisabeth: You are right because the immediate audience wouldn’t necessarily hear it but now everyone else does
Rosie: You can edit this little tiny sound bite out of context
Whoopi: it’s a whole new world
Rosie: and it’s a whole new world.
Whoopi: And you know all of you all out there are subject to what we're subject to because if you park wrong or if you yell at a kid in school you’re gonna be on YouTube – Welcome to our world
****
Anyone can take a video of anyone else and place it on the web for all to see, over and over and over again. These videos can be edited, have sound added, special effects, you name it and anyone can be made to look good or bad at the whim of a cell phone owner.
YouTube is obviously the most popular website to show these sorts of videos but they also appear on myspace and other sites. Even when a site tries to remove a clip, it will have been copied and renamed if anyone else finds it remotely interesting or funny.
Once information is out there, it is out there.
As the government and legal systems try to determine how to protect the rights of the average person from being infringed upon, they hit roadblock after roadblock. People can't be easily tracked and found. They change their names, dump information anonymously, or load it through companies or sites that are not based in the U.S. No one should want the government to prohibit cell phone videos but a remedy should be readily available to those whose privacy is violated in a damaging way.
Whoopi is right about this- everyone now has to understand that anyone could be the next celebrity, whether they like it or not.