5 ms·

This is going to be quite spectacularly broken here in the UK. It is entirely legal to publish a photo of, say, someone walking down the street without their c

This is going to be quite spectacularly broken here in the UK. It is entirely legal to publish a photo of, say, someone walking down the street without their consent. It is _not_ legal to do so in such a way that implies endorsement. So you could publish a photo of "people busy shopping in Oxford Street" without getting signed model release from everyone depicted in the photo. But you couldn't publish the same photo and claim "these are 500 happy people who've just bought the new ZogPhone at the Zog Store on Oxford Street!". That's fine. Typically, every summer, UK newspapers will print a front-cover photo of a crowded beach with a headline about "here's lots of people enjoying the sunshine". (We're British, we love talking about the weather.) And that's the case throughout UK media. I used to edit the best-selling magazine about inland boating. Every month, our cover would be a photo of someone happily steering their boat on a river or canal. We didn't get model release: we didn't need to under UK law. Those front covers can no longer be tweeted. Twitter now says: > Under our private information policy, you can’t share the following types of private information or media, without the permission of the person who it belongs to: > NEW: media of private individuals without the permission of the person(s) depicted. Is Twitter really going to take down the front page of the Guardian or the Financial Times because they haven't got signed model release for everyone in that crowd photo? I'm not convinced this has been thought through.

zimpenfish 5y ago
"We recognize that there are instances where account holders may share images or videos of private individuals [...], or as part of a newsworthy event due to public interest value, and this might outweigh the safety risks to a person." And if that wasn't enough, there's also: "For instance, we would take into consideration whether the image is publicly available and/or is being covered by mainstream/traditional media (newspapers, TV channels, online news sites)" Which seems to explicitly cover "newspaper front pages" as an exception.
darrenf 5y ago
This seems to be explicitly covered in the post, here: > We will always try to assess the context in which the content is shared and, in such cases, we may allow the images or videos to remain on the service. For instance, we would take into consideration whether the image is publicly available and/or is being covered by mainstream/traditional media (newspapers, TV channels, online news sites), or if a particular image and the accompanying tweet text adds value to the public discourse, is being shared in public interest, or is relevant to the community.
- none_to_remain 5y ago
  Pretty wordy way of saying "Who, whom?"
micromacrofoot 5y ago
this is how it works in the US too, if you’re in public I can take a photo of you and use it in a lot of ways, I could print a copy and hand it to everyone on earth, but if it’s commercial you will need a signed release form
robbedpeter 5y ago
Consent is implicitly given when you are in public. That's what "public" means, legally. It's a place where there is no expectation of privacy, which by moving into willingly, you are giving up any expectations of privacy willingly. By conducting yourself in public, you are consenting to the loss of privacy. Twitter should be fine if they're operating under local definitions of legal consent. If they're going to roll their own, things could get legally ugly - paparazzi could have legitimate claims of discrimination and financial damages.
- tidenly 5y ago
  This isn't true everywhere though. You have the right to control over your likeness being posted where I live, people can't just post your face on the internet no matter where you are, public or not.

zimpenfish 5y ago

"We recognize that there are instances where account holders may share images or videos of private individuals [...], or as part of a newsworthy event due to public interest value, and this might outweigh the safety risks to a person." And if that wasn't enough, there's also: "For instance, we would take into consideration whether the image is publicly available and/or is being covered by mainstream/traditional media (newspapers, TV channels, online news sites)" Which seems to explicitly cover "newspaper front pages" as an exception.

darrenf 5y ago

This seems to be explicitly covered in the post, here: > We will always try to assess the context in which the content is shared and, in such cases, we may allow the images or videos to remain on the service. For instance, we would take into consideration whether the image is publicly available and/or is being covered by mainstream/traditional media (newspapers, TV channels, online news sites), or if a particular image and the accompanying tweet text adds value to the public discourse, is being shared in public interest, or is relevant to the community.

none_to_remain 5y ago
Pretty wordy way of saying "Who, whom?"

micromacrofoot 5y ago

this is how it works in the US too, if you’re in public I can take a photo of you and use it in a lot of ways, I could print a copy and hand it to everyone on earth, but if it’s commercial you will need a signed release form

robbedpeter 5y ago

Consent is implicitly given when you are in public. That's what "public" means, legally. It's a place where there is no expectation of privacy, which by moving into willingly, you are giving up any expectations of privacy willingly. By conducting yourself in public, you are consenting to the loss of privacy. Twitter should be fine if they're operating under local definitions of legal consent. If they're going to roll their own, things could get legally ugly - paparazzi could have legitimate claims of discrimination and financial damages.

tidenly 5y ago
This isn't true everywhere though. You have the right to control over your likeness being posted where I live, people can't just post your face on the internet no matter where you are, public or not.