Wednesday, July 8, 2009
GP Assignment: Bus Sextape
Should the people involved be videoed?
Technology is here to stay. That we cannot deny. We are constantly reminded that the future is a terrifying spectacle by literature such as George Orwell’s 1984 (mentioned by Hua Peng) or even comic-book-turned-film V for Vendetta. In our generation bombarded with video sharing websites such as YouTube, and video-recording devices such as hand phones which are getting smaller and smaller, it is impossible to stop the onslaught of ‘home-made’ videos circulating the net every single day.
Yes, perhaps the people involved should not be videoed based on moral grounds. But yet again our rights to freedom in communication enable us to do so. Then again, society is never impartial, we constantly tread the fine line between what is constructive (which is condoned by the society) and what is a blatant disregard for privacy or human rights. This grey area complicates the matter of whether people should be videoed and published on the net.
I personally feel that these people shouldn’t be videoed, conceivably due to my deep-rooted moral values (hehe), but of course there will be an equal number of people who will oppose my view.
Who is at fault?
Judging from the previous entries in the blog, I can tell that the common consensus is that the couple and the person videoing the act are at fault. Again, yes, I agree that the couple should not have been publicly committing the sex acts as this can be classified under the abuse of their freedom of 'expression', and that they may be a bad influence to society thus should maintain some self-control. Furthermore, the person recording it should have just reported it to the bus driver and that he should not have stayed back to record the show… All of these are valid points.
However, I believe that we are missing the bigger issue in this debate (and yes I’m tired to reading the same old thing). For that we need to question our own answers. Why did the couple do their sex act on the bus instead of a hotel room? In this case, maybe we have to point the finger at the hyper-sexualized antics by the media where shows such as Sex and the City or even Desperate Housewives (I’m not saying that these shows are ‘bad’, just a reflection of the media climate) resort to using sex as one way of selling their programmes. This is entrenched into our society so deeply that now images that we were once provocative have become numb to us and the media will constantly turn-up the shock factor to incite viewer’s response.
Then we have video-sharing websites, like YouTube that have become a portal to fulfill people’ voyeuristic desires. Coupled (bad pun) with the following-the-herd mentality as well as the increasing liberal attitudes of society, people have mistaken that as the right to infringe other people’s privacy.
Who are we to blame? I’m going to take the safe route here and say that everyone, including the media, the society in general has to take some blame in allowing this incident to happen.
What should not be done…?
I have no clue now. Based on my bleak description, everything is going to turn from bad to worse and nothing will be able to stop this. Laws are not really applicable in this case as the internet is extremely difficult to regulate, and everyone will always find loopholes to the system. Changing the attitudes, mindsets of the people will take time and I doubt anyone will find it feasible enough (or want to) to implement such change.
I don’t agree with Zhong Jin’s point that the commuter is trying to manipulate the feelings of others or to create strong negative sentiments against the couple. I doubt again that the commuter had any malicious intentions against the couple, but merely posted it up to garner publicity or just to share the ‘interesting’ sights.
But when all else fails I will just rely on these: The couple should not have committed the act and that the person should not have videoed it down. Ha that’s 2 sided. What should be done is to get the government to send these clips to me so that I can view and veto which videos can be uploaded to STOMP =D.
Edited @ 5pm due to some reference errors.
-david
Howled at 12:43 PM
