Your opiate overdose is on YouTube. Now what?

[MillCreek]

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/11/us/overdoses-youtube-opioids-drugs.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=US

Interesting story about life after having your opiate overdose filmed by strangers.

[BlueStarLizzard]

I find it hard to have much sympathy. In this day and age, having a humiliating moment filmed and put on YouTube is something we are going to have to get used to. Pandora's box was opened and there is no putting it back. And that goes for more than just ODs.


I do think the LEO should refrain from sharing these kinds of videos, though. It seems unprofessional too me, as well as breaking a degree of privacy that should be kept in dealings between cops and the people they are dealing with.

[cordex]

I do think the LEO should refrain from sharing these kinds of videos, though. It seems unprofessional too me, as well as breaking a degree of privacy that should be kept in dealings between cops and the people they are dealing with.

Careful what you wish for.  There's something to be said for that (especially where juveniles are involved), but it also has to be balanced with transparency.

[BlueStarLizzard]

Careful what you wish for.  There's something to be said for that (especially where juveniles are involved), but it also has to be balanced with transparency.

The impression I got from the article was that the police were sharing the public YouTube videos or clips from those videos on their official social media sites and is what I say they should not be using or sharing.

Video taken in an official capacity while on duty absolutely should not be shared without proper procedure and protocol in place. Furthermore, it should never be used for entertainment and only as public education with the consent of the victim.

[cordex]

The impression I got from the article was that the police were sharing the public YouTube videos or clips from those videos on their official social media sites and is what I say they should not be using or sharing.

Video taken in an official capacity while on duty absolutely should not be shared without proper procedure and protocol in place. Furthermore, it should never be used for entertainment and only as public education with the consent of the victim.

I'm not sure that I would agree that video taken in a public place by police in the course of their duties is or should be protected in the way you think it should be.

[griz]

Video taken in an official capacity while on duty absolutely should not be shared without proper procedure and protocol in place. Furthermore, it should never be used for entertainment and only as public education with the consent of the victim.

That's what it comes down to, but as the amount of video saved grows exponentially the question is what criteria should be used before release.  The police go to, and film, places that would be considered private.  What's the right way to handle that.  Besides the OD question which involves a bad decision made in a completely public place, you can have a victim who made no such bad choice but had the misfortune to be attacked publicly.  Do you want the family to see their loved one beaten on camera?  It's a new enough question that the answers will be a struggle for a while.

[HeroHog]

If you act a fool in PUBLIC, it can be recorded by anyone. Some(all?) states, you need a release from those being filmed to profit from the recording's use, hence the blurred faces on many reality shows.

[BlueStarLizzard]

I'm not sure that I would agree that video taken in a public place by police in the course of their duties is or should be protected in the way you think it should be.

So should your personal information and other evidence taken by police during the course of their duties should be available for the public as well? You don't think that video should fall under the same guidelines as the other sensitive information they collect?

[cordex]

So should your personal information and other evidence taken by police during the course of their duties should be available for the public as well? You don't think that video should fall under the same guidelines as the other sensitive information they collect?

A lot of evidence and personal information collected by police already is available if anyone cares to ask for it.  Not all, for sure, but much of it - and for damn good reason.  There are regularly exceptions made for juveniles, sexual assault cases and the like, but much of the "personal information and other evidence taken by police during the course of their duties" is or can be made available to the public.

It's absolutely dependent on the situation, but for the most part video taken in public by police is not fundamentally different from video taken in public by a regular bystander.  Would I like it if footage from one of the lowest times in my life were plastered across social media?  Of course not, but that's true whether it's from a cop's bodycam or a passer-by's cell phone, and I'm not about to support censoring the latter.

There are going to be some videos taken by police that absolutely should not be released to the public, but videos of people making criminally bad decisions in public doesn't automatically cross that line for me.