July 22, 2025 • 19 mins
Have we lost the right to anonymity?
By now we’ve all heard about the couple who went viral after being caught looking embarrassed on a kiss cam at a Coldplay concert in the US.
An offhand, cheeky comment by frontman Chris Martin and a whole lot of internet sleuthing later and it turns out; they were colleagues having an affair.
Details of their personal and professional lives spread across social media like wildfire, and the man involved resigned as CEO of a major tech company.
But, it’s not the first-time people have gone from complete unknowns to internet sensations... which makes you wonder – in an age when just about everyone has a camera in their pocket, is having our worst moments captured and put on the internet outside of our control?
Is there anything that can be done -- or are we all at risk of being publicly shamed?
Today on The Front Page, privacy lawyer Kathryn Dalziel is with us to discuss what the law says about privacy in our internet age.
Follow The Front Page on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
You can read more about this and other stories in the New Zealand Herald, online at nzherald.co.nz, or tune in to news bulletins across the NZME network.
Host: Chelsea Daniels
Editor/Producer: Richard Martin
Producer: Ethan Sills
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Kyota.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
daily podcast presented by The New Zealand Herald.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Have we lost the right to anonymity? By now?
Speaker 2 (00:20):
We've all heard about the couple who went viral after
being caught looking embarrassed on a kiss cam at a
Coldplay concert in the US, an offhand, cheeky comment by
frontman Chris Martin and a whole lot of Internet saluting later,
and it.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Turns out they were colleagues having an affair. Oh look
at these people.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
I'll like the company.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Affair or details of their personal and professional lives spread
across social media like wildfire, and the man involved resigned as.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
CEO of a major tech company.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
But it's not the first time people have gone from
complete unknowns to Internet sensations, Which makes you wonder, in
an age when just about everyone has a camera in
their pocket, is having our worst moments captured and put
on the Internet outside of our control? Is there anything
that can be done? Or are we just all at
(01:22):
risk of publicly being shamed? Today on the Front Page,
privacy lawyer Catherine Dalzell is with us to discuss what
the law says about privacy in our internet age. So,
as a privacy lawyer, what did you think when you
(01:43):
first saw this couple going viral?
Speaker 4 (01:46):
I don't know if it was so much as a
privacy lawyer, but as a lawyer, we love drama and
we love watching it. So when I first had a
look at that, I found myself thinking, wow, you know,
he's a couple. They're not happy about being caught, And
I thought that Chris Martin should think about doing law
as well, because he immediately went to the same thoughts
(02:09):
as me. Are they shy or are they trying to
hide something? So, yeah, no, that was really interesting.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
I don't think.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Either of these people involved longed to become known by
millions around the world.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Is there anything the two of them.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Can do now that their names and everything about them
are online? Or has the ship sailed as soon as
that they were on the jumbo Tron.
Speaker 4 (02:31):
One thing that's interesting for me in these events is
our society has changed. So we're all carrying recording devices
on us wherever we go, we're out in public, there's
CCTV cameras everywhere. Our society has changed dramatically over the
last twenty to thirty years. The question is whether they
have a reasonable expectation of privacy, and whether the publication
(02:53):
of facts about them would be offensive to a reasonable person.
And quite frankly, at a concert swaying along to Coldplay
is probably doesn't meet the legal tests of a privacy
interest in this and what's happened. But we do have
an interest in it because how would you feel if
(03:14):
that was you. You've gone to a concert, you're in
a private relationship, and suddenly you're being judged by the
world and we've got cancel culture, We've got that that well,
we've got the discussion that's going on around the world,
and how would you feel? And that's not good for
human beings because as I understand that their jobs, they're
under threat, their life is under threat, and they'll be
(03:35):
feeling unsafe. So is it good that we have human
beings feeling the way that they feel even though they
might have made a bad moral judgment. They weren't breaking
the law, they weren't doing anything that our government say
is wrong. They were just being people and they're being
judged by people. So what do we do about that?
Not one hundred percent sure the law is the best
(03:56):
place to do that. We've got privacy, confidentiality, defamation, harassment,
and criminal law has also got an interest in things
like grooming, stalking, use of interception devices, but none of
that package really comes to what's going on online. So
(04:16):
I found myself thinking what should we do as human beings?
And it probably is more of a philosophical and moral discussion.
And we've got back to the old fashioned things of
do unto others as you have them do unto you.
You've got nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all.
You know, those are the values that we grew up
with that actually have a place in our in social media.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Right, So we don't need a fancy schmancy lawyer.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
We just need my mum to come up to a
select committee and tell everyone what to do. So, are
there any laws actually in place at the moment?
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Or like when you're in.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Public, Say, if I am in line for a fast
food establishment, I see somebody being to the wait staff,
I film.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
It, I put it online.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
They're easily recognizable and the Internet does its thing and
finds out this person's name, address, where they work, et cetera.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Is that just bad luck?
Speaker 4 (05:13):
Yeah? I think the short answer that is yes, did
they have a reasonable expectation of privacy in that sort
of environment, and I would say no, But I would say,
if you've got lining up to go into a concert,
you should have notices making you aware that there is
kiss cams going on, or you should you should know
that that's available to them, because and that to me
(05:35):
is an important privacy, right you know where you're going into.
It's when we walk into the supermarket. We know that
there's a camera, there are cameras there. Because the sophistication
of their cameras, particularly the concert organizers cameras, it's going
to be much better than yours of my archon. I've
been really interested in the discussion online of it. So
I went to the net ball and christ you the
other day yea technics and and suddenly I was on
(05:56):
not a kisskeem, I was on a camera and the
crowd dancing along to the music and having a good time. Now,
these were all reasonable depictions of me and everything like that,
but there was nothing that told me that that was
something when I came into the stadium, that that's what
I'd be experiencing. And I was quite quite interested in
that because we do see some people sort of ducking
(06:16):
wake Bess. They didn't want to be on camera, and
there was a man who brought a sign saying I
am with my wife and which I thought was really funny.
I did find stuff reflecting on that and had to
look around the internet to see what people are saying
about that. And one of the things that organizers have
got to do think about is whether this will put
people off going. Look, maybe at the Cold Blake concert,
(06:38):
so two people don't turn up, you know, or will
there be more? Will we we start saying, look, I'm
going to watch that from my my screen at home.
I'll buy your tickets for an online concert, but I'm
not going to go there because I just don't want
to run the risk of being judged and ends up
all over the world just because I might have drunk
a little bit too much or I'm hugging the wrong person.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
I mean, this is hardly the first time in human
history that something like this has happened, right. It feels
like every few weeks there's some new random personal or
something who becomes an Internet villain almost overnight. One of
the early examples that I saw back in twenty thirteen.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Have you heard of the story of Justine Sacho.
Speaker 5 (07:18):
She's the PR executive at the center of a digital firestorm.
Justine Saco now apologizing after this offensive tweet went viral,
going to Africa hope I don't get AIDS. Just kidding
I'm white. In a statement, Saco now tells ABC News
words cannot express how sorry I am and how necessary
it is for me to apologize to the people of
(07:40):
South Africa. She was fired Saturday from her top PR
job at internet giant IAC. Saco posted the tweet Friday,
just before a nearly twelve hour flight from London to
Cape Town, South Africa. While she was apparently offline in
mid air, Millions were online anxiously waiting for her to
land and see the uproar her tweet cast. The hashtag
(08:02):
has Justine landed yet became an instant trend.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
I think we can all agree that that tweet is
unsavory to say the least.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
It's a bad joke.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
But her entire life was destroyed because of this within
like an eleven hour period. Why do you think people
think they have a right to dos someone online like that?
Speaker 4 (08:25):
Jane Elston, who wrote one of my favorite books, Pride
and Prejudice, one of the characters says in that what
are we here for? That makes sport for our neighbors
and to laugh at them, and then in our turn
we are entertained by other people. But the other thing
is that, as is the case in Pride and Prejudice,
they dined with four and twenty families. It was a village.
(08:47):
Now we are a global village. We're millions, billions of
people are doing behaving in exactly the same way as
in Jane Austen's village. So we are always interested. There
are a number of drivers as to why we do that.
Look at somebody else. Let's take the effeck out of
someone out sosiet before we take the loger board out
of our own eye. So, as human beings, we are
interested in that comes from a lot of drivers. We're
(09:10):
human animals. We want to belong to a club. The
club's weighing in, and so we join the club because
we want to be seen as part of the club.
And people get senses of belonging in participating and commenting,
regardless of the outcome on the other person that they have.
And as I say, the law hasn't found a way
to address this. It hasn't back in the seventeen eighteen
(09:33):
hundreds when Jane Osten was writing it't hasn't to date
it has, I say, the list of laws that we
talk about and we use. There are companies that have
been set up now to help cleanse the internet PR companies,
and I as a lawyer quite often refer clients to
PR companies to deal with public outfulls their legal matters.
And that's simply because our village has become so big
(09:55):
across countries, which means having in global rules hasn't. It
doesn't work, and so we now need to think about
how we're going to address it. And generally PR some privacy.
If you're in Europe, they've got a wonderful privacy law
called the Right to be Forgotten. So we don't have
this in New Zealand. And I think it's something we need,
(10:17):
which is where information is being disseminate about us, in
due course it's irrelevant and we shouldn't be able to
read it five ten years later. Right.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
So if there's a nasty rumor or something going around,
or if I've like you know, been in the background
of someone's selfie eating a hot dog or something. If
I lived in Europe, I can kind of scrub that
from the Internet.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
Yes, and due course, if it's not relevant. But if
there's a reason why you are relevant in the background,
you're an eyewitness to something that happened or something like that,
there might be a good reason to maintain the information.
But also if you're just eating our hot dog, is
there any really any issue about it? It's all about reasonableness.
The law interfears when there's when it's unreasonable in that
(11:02):
sort of situation. I don't know, but I think that say,
for example, you're in a car accident and you've got
serious injuries, including physical serious injuries, and somebody wants to
quite a great date, I think it's a different story
in the law will and being.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Twitter is basically a mutual approval machine. We surround ourselves
with people who feel the same way we do, and
we approve each other and that's a really good feeling.
And if somebody gets in the way, we screen them out.
And you know what, that's the opposite of it's the
opposite of democracy. We wanted to show that we cared
about people dying of AIDS in Africa. Our desire to
(11:39):
be seen to be compassionate is what led us to
commit this profoundly uncompassionate pact. As Megan o Geblin wrote
in The Boston Review, this isn't social justice. It's a
cathartic alternative.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
And it's funny you bring up Jane Austen because when
I was reading through this bit witch hunty, so like
back in the day, it's kind of like today you're
docksed online and might lose your job, but back in
the day you may have been burnt at the stake.
Speaker 4 (12:09):
Yes, exactly, And it's that sort of thing, you know,
for the individuals involved, it's really really important that they
understand this too shall pass and that they've got to
they've got to go through that that's a consequence for
their behavior and their judgment. The other thing is that
we also had to participate. And I come back to
I'd love to see your mum and chat with her
(12:31):
about this, because I think she would be right. You
can't say anything nice, say nothing at all. Why are
we wading into this? Why are we vilifying people? Why
are we canceling them and doing that to people when
they just made a mistake. And also, how would you
feel if somebody caught out one of your stakes.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
So, Catherine, what are the privacy laws protecting us in
the social media age? Another example, what about you just
happen to be in the background of someone's selfie.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
What about door cams?
Speaker 4 (13:07):
Well, if you choose to go onto somebody's property and
they're not an agency, they're just somebody who's got a
door cam on their property. Although you know the door
cams are used a lot by Airbnb and organizations like that,
the thing is is that once you're on the property
in that private capacity, they're entitled to mate recordings. Airbnb
should have notices up about that they because they are
(13:30):
a separate agency. But if you choose to go onto
somebody's private property, come into my house and I have
a door cam, they were entitled to film. So say,
for example, this couple that were dancing, and perhaps if
they just acted it out really as strongly and just
said yeah, no, we're just mates and you know, and
things like that. You know, I hope my mates are
dancing one with one of my mates at the nicol
(13:50):
you know, it's there's things like that. But if I
had if there was a photo of me just dancing
along and everyone published that I was having an affair
with my mate. I defamation and sits there. So it's
the inferences that we draw from the video and Chris
Martin exemplified it properly. They're either shy or they're having
an affair. He's at risk of defamation on that. But
(14:13):
unfortunately it turned out to be from research that was
done and the appears that what I read on the
internet that they see me doing all the qualifiers because
of a good deformation lawyer, that it appears they might
have been having an affair. So that was a big
call for him to make because he was at risk
of defamation and saying that because they might have just
(14:33):
been good friends having a dance a long and loving
Chris Martin that he's just had his arms around here.
It was nothing, absolutely nothing. They could have brazened it out,
but then ducking away seem to imply or infirm and
in some substitute, but equally it could have been public embarrassment.
Who likes being on there. I watched it book Metal
the other night. Lots of people were hiding their faces
(14:55):
because I didn't want to be on a public camera.
Speaker 6 (15:00):
You know, it's interesting to think about the idea that
if they had played it cool, like if he if
the reaction had not been that, then nobody would be
talking about this today, And yet it's all over our feed.
I feel for the families involved. Obviously this is a
tragic and upsetting, but also people are watching all the time.
Ryan and I were talking about that, You're always recorded.
There's always eyes by the way.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
Cold Place, next stop, Saturday Madison, and you're going, I'm
going whether permitted taking the punche I'm ready to go.
Speaker 6 (15:26):
Well, don't take anybody you don't want to be on
the show, or.
Speaker 5 (15:31):
It's going to be fun.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
I'm excited to hear about it.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Well, looking at the Coldplay case, these people got identified
incredibly quickly online and the details of their social media pages,
like we've said, share all over the place.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
I read somewhere actually the.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Guy's wife would have woken up to thousands of messages
before she even knew what had happened. Have we given
up the right to protect our content, to protect our image,
even if we make all of our social media accounts private.
Speaker 4 (16:03):
Well, it's kind of like we become public figures. And
I you know, we see this a lot with people
who are doing online advertising, who are influencers and doing
that sort of thing, and then they go on one
of these reality television programs and then they wonder why
things are going badly for them. It's just competing public
(16:24):
interests and they put their life out there, they're judging,
they get judged, and then suddenly that doesn't seem to
go so well for them. So I think that if
you're putting things out in public, and I always caution
people about putting things out in public, there's a really
really good reason. It's not for docxing, and it's not
for public humiliation. The reason why you shouldn't put things
(16:45):
out in public is because criminals on the internet are
using our information to attack us, and they will ring
up and pretend to be people that know us, or
they ring up and talk to people and pretend to
be people they know us, all because we're handed over
our information on the Internet and they are using that
information to get access to our money, into our private records,
(17:06):
and it's working. The reason why we shouldn't be looking
down and taking control of it is because people will
be behaved like people, and that's what criminals are doing.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
Right.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
So, in terms of doxing people on the internet, and
may and upending a life, so to speak, just after
you know, one mistake, one tweet, one coldplay concept. Legally,
there's not much we can do, but morally, as a
society we can take a look at our actions and
see where we go from here.
Speaker 4 (17:34):
Yeah, and that's why what you're doing today is really important,
because it's about getting out to people and saying how
can we be better? How can we do this better?
And there are some things that are there. If that
couple have been involved in an accident or something really
bad it's happened to them that had nothing to do
with their relationship, then there may have been some privacy
(17:55):
and interests. If they hadn't been having an affair, they
had the right of defamation. Arguably, some of the docs
in they're receiving good amount to harassment, particularly if the
media are camped outside their house, as their harassment laws
or criminal laws have some interest in that is somebody
trying as we've seen the celebrities, is the media trying
to listen in to their telephone conversations using sept and devices.
(18:19):
We have laws that are interested in those sorts of things.
But at the entertay, if you're just dancing along with
a Coldplay concert, and there are cameras going about. Pray
to hear anybody's game.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
Thanks for joining us, Catherine, my pleasure. That's it for
this episode of the Front Page. You can read more
about today's stories and extensive news coverage at azidherld, dot
co dot MZD. The Front Page is produced by Ethan
Sells and Richard Martin, who is also our editor.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
I'm Chelsea Daniels.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Subscribe to the Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you
get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow for another look
behind the headlines.
Kyota.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
daily podcast presented by The New Zealand Herald.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Have we lost the right to anonymity? By now?
Speaker 2 (00:20):
We've all heard about the couple who went viral after
being caught looking embarrassed on a kiss cam at a
Coldplay concert in the US, an offhand, cheeky comment by
frontman Chris Martin and a whole lot of Internet saluting later,
and it.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Turns out they were colleagues having an affair. Oh look
at these people.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
I'll like the company.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Affair or details of their personal and professional lives spread
across social media like wildfire, and the man involved resigned as.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
CEO of a major tech company.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
But it's not the first time people have gone from
complete unknowns to Internet sensations, Which makes you wonder, in
an age when just about everyone has a camera in
their pocket, is having our worst moments captured and put
on the Internet outside of our control? Is there anything
that can be done? Or are we just all at
(01:22):
risk of publicly being shamed? Today on the Front Page,
privacy lawyer Catherine Dalzell is with us to discuss what
the law says about privacy in our internet age. So,
as a privacy lawyer, what did you think when you
(01:43):
first saw this couple going viral?
Speaker 4 (01:46):
I don't know if it was so much as a
privacy lawyer, but as a lawyer, we love drama and
we love watching it. So when I first had a
look at that, I found myself thinking, wow, you know,
he's a couple. They're not happy about being caught, And
I thought that Chris Martin should think about doing law
as well, because he immediately went to the same thoughts
(02:09):
as me. Are they shy or are they trying to
hide something? So, yeah, no, that was really interesting.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
I don't think.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Either of these people involved longed to become known by
millions around the world.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Is there anything the two of them.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Can do now that their names and everything about them
are online? Or has the ship sailed as soon as
that they were on the jumbo Tron.
Speaker 4 (02:31):
One thing that's interesting for me in these events is
our society has changed. So we're all carrying recording devices
on us wherever we go, we're out in public, there's
CCTV cameras everywhere. Our society has changed dramatically over the
last twenty to thirty years. The question is whether they
have a reasonable expectation of privacy, and whether the publication
(02:53):
of facts about them would be offensive to a reasonable person.
And quite frankly, at a concert swaying along to Coldplay
is probably doesn't meet the legal tests of a privacy
interest in this and what's happened. But we do have
an interest in it because how would you feel if
(03:14):
that was you. You've gone to a concert, you're in
a private relationship, and suddenly you're being judged by the
world and we've got cancel culture, We've got that that well,
we've got the discussion that's going on around the world,
and how would you feel? And that's not good for
human beings because as I understand that their jobs, they're
under threat, their life is under threat, and they'll be
(03:35):
feeling unsafe. So is it good that we have human
beings feeling the way that they feel even though they
might have made a bad moral judgment. They weren't breaking
the law, they weren't doing anything that our government say
is wrong. They were just being people and they're being
judged by people. So what do we do about that?
Not one hundred percent sure the law is the best
(03:56):
place to do that. We've got privacy, confidentiality, defamation, harassment,
and criminal law has also got an interest in things
like grooming, stalking, use of interception devices, but none of
that package really comes to what's going on online. So
(04:16):
I found myself thinking what should we do as human beings?
And it probably is more of a philosophical and moral discussion.
And we've got back to the old fashioned things of
do unto others as you have them do unto you.
You've got nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all.
You know, those are the values that we grew up
with that actually have a place in our in social media.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Right, So we don't need a fancy schmancy lawyer.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
We just need my mum to come up to a
select committee and tell everyone what to do. So, are
there any laws actually in place at the moment?
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Or like when you're in.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Public, Say, if I am in line for a fast
food establishment, I see somebody being to the wait staff,
I film.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
It, I put it online.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
They're easily recognizable and the Internet does its thing and
finds out this person's name, address, where they work, et cetera.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Is that just bad luck?
Speaker 4 (05:13):
Yeah? I think the short answer that is yes, did
they have a reasonable expectation of privacy in that sort
of environment, and I would say no, But I would say,
if you've got lining up to go into a concert,
you should have notices making you aware that there is
kiss cams going on, or you should you should know
that that's available to them, because and that to me
(05:35):
is an important privacy, right you know where you're going into.
It's when we walk into the supermarket. We know that
there's a camera, there are cameras there. Because the sophistication
of their cameras, particularly the concert organizers cameras, it's going
to be much better than yours of my archon. I've
been really interested in the discussion online of it. So
I went to the net ball and christ you the
other day yea technics and and suddenly I was on
(05:56):
not a kisskeem, I was on a camera and the
crowd dancing along to the music and having a good time. Now,
these were all reasonable depictions of me and everything like that,
but there was nothing that told me that that was
something when I came into the stadium, that that's what
I'd be experiencing. And I was quite quite interested in
that because we do see some people sort of ducking
(06:16):
wake Bess. They didn't want to be on camera, and
there was a man who brought a sign saying I
am with my wife and which I thought was really funny.
I did find stuff reflecting on that and had to
look around the internet to see what people are saying
about that. And one of the things that organizers have
got to do think about is whether this will put
people off going. Look, maybe at the Cold Blake concert,
(06:38):
so two people don't turn up, you know, or will
there be more? Will we we start saying, look, I'm
going to watch that from my my screen at home.
I'll buy your tickets for an online concert, but I'm
not going to go there because I just don't want
to run the risk of being judged and ends up
all over the world just because I might have drunk
a little bit too much or I'm hugging the wrong person.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
I mean, this is hardly the first time in human
history that something like this has happened, right. It feels
like every few weeks there's some new random personal or
something who becomes an Internet villain almost overnight. One of
the early examples that I saw back in twenty thirteen.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Have you heard of the story of Justine Sacho.
Speaker 5 (07:18):
She's the PR executive at the center of a digital firestorm.
Justine Saco now apologizing after this offensive tweet went viral,
going to Africa hope I don't get AIDS. Just kidding
I'm white. In a statement, Saco now tells ABC News
words cannot express how sorry I am and how necessary
it is for me to apologize to the people of
(07:40):
South Africa. She was fired Saturday from her top PR
job at internet giant IAC. Saco posted the tweet Friday,
just before a nearly twelve hour flight from London to
Cape Town, South Africa. While she was apparently offline in
mid air, Millions were online anxiously waiting for her to
land and see the uproar her tweet cast. The hashtag
(08:02):
has Justine landed yet became an instant trend.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
I think we can all agree that that tweet is
unsavory to say the least.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
It's a bad joke.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
But her entire life was destroyed because of this within
like an eleven hour period. Why do you think people
think they have a right to dos someone online like that?
Speaker 4 (08:25):
Jane Elston, who wrote one of my favorite books, Pride
and Prejudice, one of the characters says in that what
are we here for? That makes sport for our neighbors
and to laugh at them, and then in our turn
we are entertained by other people. But the other thing
is that, as is the case in Pride and Prejudice,
they dined with four and twenty families. It was a village.
(08:47):
Now we are a global village. We're millions, billions of
people are doing behaving in exactly the same way as
in Jane Austen's village. So we are always interested. There
are a number of drivers as to why we do that.
Look at somebody else. Let's take the effeck out of
someone out sosiet before we take the loger board out
of our own eye. So, as human beings, we are
interested in that comes from a lot of drivers. We're
(09:10):
human animals. We want to belong to a club. The
club's weighing in, and so we join the club because
we want to be seen as part of the club.
And people get senses of belonging in participating and commenting,
regardless of the outcome on the other person that they have.
And as I say, the law hasn't found a way
to address this. It hasn't back in the seventeen eighteen
(09:33):
hundreds when Jane Osten was writing it't hasn't to date
it has, I say, the list of laws that we
talk about and we use. There are companies that have
been set up now to help cleanse the internet PR companies,
and I as a lawyer quite often refer clients to
PR companies to deal with public outfulls their legal matters.
And that's simply because our village has become so big
(09:55):
across countries, which means having in global rules hasn't. It
doesn't work, and so we now need to think about
how we're going to address it. And generally PR some privacy.
If you're in Europe, they've got a wonderful privacy law
called the Right to be Forgotten. So we don't have
this in New Zealand. And I think it's something we need,
(10:17):
which is where information is being disseminate about us, in
due course it's irrelevant and we shouldn't be able to
read it five ten years later. Right.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
So if there's a nasty rumor or something going around,
or if I've like you know, been in the background
of someone's selfie eating a hot dog or something. If
I lived in Europe, I can kind of scrub that
from the Internet.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
Yes, and due course, if it's not relevant. But if
there's a reason why you are relevant in the background,
you're an eyewitness to something that happened or something like that,
there might be a good reason to maintain the information.
But also if you're just eating our hot dog, is
there any really any issue about it? It's all about reasonableness.
The law interfears when there's when it's unreasonable in that
(11:02):
sort of situation. I don't know, but I think that say,
for example, you're in a car accident and you've got
serious injuries, including physical serious injuries, and somebody wants to
quite a great date, I think it's a different story
in the law will and being.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Twitter is basically a mutual approval machine. We surround ourselves
with people who feel the same way we do, and
we approve each other and that's a really good feeling.
And if somebody gets in the way, we screen them out.
And you know what, that's the opposite of it's the
opposite of democracy. We wanted to show that we cared
about people dying of AIDS in Africa. Our desire to
(11:39):
be seen to be compassionate is what led us to
commit this profoundly uncompassionate pact. As Megan o Geblin wrote
in The Boston Review, this isn't social justice. It's a
cathartic alternative.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
And it's funny you bring up Jane Austen because when
I was reading through this bit witch hunty, so like
back in the day, it's kind of like today you're
docksed online and might lose your job, but back in
the day you may have been burnt at the stake.
Speaker 4 (12:09):
Yes, exactly, And it's that sort of thing, you know,
for the individuals involved, it's really really important that they
understand this too shall pass and that they've got to
they've got to go through that that's a consequence for
their behavior and their judgment. The other thing is that
we also had to participate. And I come back to
I'd love to see your mum and chat with her
(12:31):
about this, because I think she would be right. You
can't say anything nice, say nothing at all. Why are
we wading into this? Why are we vilifying people? Why
are we canceling them and doing that to people when
they just made a mistake. And also, how would you
feel if somebody caught out one of your stakes.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
So, Catherine, what are the privacy laws protecting us in
the social media age? Another example, what about you just
happen to be in the background of someone's selfie.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
What about door cams?
Speaker 4 (13:07):
Well, if you choose to go onto somebody's property and
they're not an agency, they're just somebody who's got a
door cam on their property. Although you know the door
cams are used a lot by Airbnb and organizations like that,
the thing is is that once you're on the property
in that private capacity, they're entitled to mate recordings. Airbnb
should have notices up about that they because they are
(13:30):
a separate agency. But if you choose to go onto
somebody's private property, come into my house and I have
a door cam, they were entitled to film. So say,
for example, this couple that were dancing, and perhaps if
they just acted it out really as strongly and just
said yeah, no, we're just mates and you know, and
things like that. You know, I hope my mates are
dancing one with one of my mates at the nicol
(13:50):
you know, it's there's things like that. But if I
had if there was a photo of me just dancing
along and everyone published that I was having an affair
with my mate. I defamation and sits there. So it's
the inferences that we draw from the video and Chris
Martin exemplified it properly. They're either shy or they're having
an affair. He's at risk of defamation on that. But
(14:13):
unfortunately it turned out to be from research that was
done and the appears that what I read on the
internet that they see me doing all the qualifiers because
of a good deformation lawyer, that it appears they might
have been having an affair. So that was a big
call for him to make because he was at risk
of defamation and saying that because they might have just
(14:33):
been good friends having a dance a long and loving
Chris Martin that he's just had his arms around here.
It was nothing, absolutely nothing. They could have brazened it out,
but then ducking away seem to imply or infirm and
in some substitute, but equally it could have been public embarrassment.
Who likes being on there. I watched it book Metal
the other night. Lots of people were hiding their faces
(14:55):
because I didn't want to be on a public camera.
Speaker 6 (15:00):
You know, it's interesting to think about the idea that
if they had played it cool, like if he if
the reaction had not been that, then nobody would be
talking about this today, And yet it's all over our feed.
I feel for the families involved. Obviously this is a
tragic and upsetting, but also people are watching all the time.
Ryan and I were talking about that, You're always recorded.
There's always eyes by the way.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
Cold Place, next stop, Saturday Madison, and you're going, I'm
going whether permitted taking the punche I'm ready to go.
Speaker 6 (15:26):
Well, don't take anybody you don't want to be on
the show, or.
Speaker 5 (15:31):
It's going to be fun.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
I'm excited to hear about it.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Well, looking at the Coldplay case, these people got identified
incredibly quickly online and the details of their social media pages,
like we've said, share all over the place.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
I read somewhere actually the.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Guy's wife would have woken up to thousands of messages
before she even knew what had happened. Have we given
up the right to protect our content, to protect our image,
even if we make all of our social media accounts private.
Speaker 4 (16:03):
Well, it's kind of like we become public figures. And
I you know, we see this a lot with people
who are doing online advertising, who are influencers and doing
that sort of thing, and then they go on one
of these reality television programs and then they wonder why
things are going badly for them. It's just competing public
(16:24):
interests and they put their life out there, they're judging,
they get judged, and then suddenly that doesn't seem to
go so well for them. So I think that if
you're putting things out in public, and I always caution
people about putting things out in public, there's a really
really good reason. It's not for docxing, and it's not
for public humiliation. The reason why you shouldn't put things
(16:45):
out in public is because criminals on the internet are
using our information to attack us, and they will ring
up and pretend to be people that know us, or
they ring up and talk to people and pretend to
be people they know us, all because we're handed over
our information on the Internet and they are using that
information to get access to our money, into our private records,
(17:06):
and it's working. The reason why we shouldn't be looking
down and taking control of it is because people will
be behaved like people, and that's what criminals are doing.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
Right.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
So, in terms of doxing people on the internet, and
may and upending a life, so to speak, just after
you know, one mistake, one tweet, one coldplay concept. Legally,
there's not much we can do, but morally, as a
society we can take a look at our actions and
see where we go from here.
Speaker 4 (17:34):
Yeah, and that's why what you're doing today is really important,
because it's about getting out to people and saying how
can we be better? How can we do this better?
And there are some things that are there. If that
couple have been involved in an accident or something really
bad it's happened to them that had nothing to do
with their relationship, then there may have been some privacy
(17:55):
and interests. If they hadn't been having an affair, they
had the right of defamation. Arguably, some of the docs
in they're receiving good amount to harassment, particularly if the
media are camped outside their house, as their harassment laws
or criminal laws have some interest in that is somebody
trying as we've seen the celebrities, is the media trying
to listen in to their telephone conversations using sept and devices.
(18:19):
We have laws that are interested in those sorts of things.
But at the entertay, if you're just dancing along with
a Coldplay concert, and there are cameras going about. Pray
to hear anybody's game.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
Thanks for joining us, Catherine, my pleasure. That's it for
this episode of the Front Page. You can read more
about today's stories and extensive news coverage at azidherld, dot
co dot MZD. The Front Page is produced by Ethan
Sells and Richard Martin, who is also our editor.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
I'm Chelsea Daniels.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Subscribe to the Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you
get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow for another look
behind the headlines.
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