I am of the same opinion.
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@lhutton I agree with your thoughts.
Most organizations I have volunteered with follow the consent model to the point where photography is not permitted even when I am not taking photos of people.
On attitudes toward faceless corporations, I suppose that it partly comes from the privacy through obfuscation perspective and the unawareness of the fact that creeps seek out social media vulnerabilities much more than they are on the street seeking vulnerable or naïve individuals.
PS It is easier and more convenient to call out, report or litigate against an individual than a corporation.
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Eh, I’d say it’s more a shifting cultural norms thing in this case. I do agree that we have a lot more issues with surveillance both from private entities and public ones than we used. IMO our system by and large serves the upper class at the cost of freedom to those of us in the squishy middle to lower class. We’ve regressed in a number of ways from the social reform era of the late 20th century.
Our Bill of Rights is written to protect “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” not any one particular activity. I can practice akido in the park but as soon as I hit someone I’m in trouble because I interfered with their right to said “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” in the form of simply enjoying the park. My right to practice martial arts ends where your face begins. Same can be said for public photography to a degree. If my activity is weirding everyone out then I’m the problem, not them.
I think this changing attitude around photography is partially out of greater awareness about how photography has been abused, largely by middle aged to older men, in the past. The whole “guy with a camera” stereotype exists for a reason. Most average everyday woman has some kind of story about being stalked, creeped on or directly assaulted. These aren’t supermodel celebrity women, just your next door neighbors. I personally know of at least one who had up skirts taken under the guise of “street art.”
What constitutes legal changes. It used to be legal to own human beings in this country, you can argue that was never moral and I agree but it was perfectly legal. That’s an extreme example but I suspect something similar will happen to “photos without consent” in the future. Most young women (and a fair number of young men) I interact with see it as amoral right now, just not illegal (yet). I think Japan and Germany have similar laws around recognizable non-consequential photos of faces of private citizens in public spaces and as far as I can tell they aren’t some kind of dystopia compared to America.
I don’t like being lumped in with criminals and perverts but TBH there are a lot of those out there. I agree that there’s a double standard and lady photographers don’t have to deal with this as much. But they have their own set of worries to contend with, welcome to adulthood I guess. It sucks for everyone just differently, hooray! What grinds my gears is Meta, Bytedance, Apple, Google, the surveillance state, etc all getting a pass in the younger generation’s eyes and private citizen photographers getting singled out. I don’t understand that at all. If they were at least onboard with ending the abuses by the larger entities as well I’d say “well, it sucks I have to give up my thing but I understand your concerns and we have a bigger enemy to fight” but as it stands now it leaves me scratching my head.
TL;DR: having a camera is no longer novel like it was 30-40 years ago. Photographers or perverts posing as photographers have effectively abused the power dynamic over the years and the chickens have come home to roost with Gen Z. Maybe we should have done a better job at not venerating these guys who were obviously up to no good. I dunno.
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