A Viral Marriage Proposal Raises Privacy Questions in the Social Media Age
How does privacy work when everyone has a camera and a social media account? BU experts weigh in. Photo via iStock/DrAfter123
A Viral Marriage Proposal Raises Privacy Questions in the Social Media Age
BU professors from COM and LAW on the debate sparked by a bystander-captured video of a private moment along the Charles River
A recent viral video captured along the Charles River is raising questions about just how much privacy we are all entitled to in our hyper-digital world.
The 16-second video goes like this: a man on one knee looks up at a woman on a gray afternoon along Memorial Drive in Cambridge. The Charles River, its banks lush, glints in the background. The woman, smiling, grabs his face for a kiss. The camera zooms in, until she helps him to his feet, still smiling, before the video cuts off.
The cute outdoor proposal was captured in late June by a driver stopped at a red light. She sent the video to the popular @OnlyInBos Instagram account, where it took off. The Boston Globe picked up the story, calling the moment a real-life Taylor Swift song.
Then the debate started.
Globe commenters were split, with some joyful at witnessing a sweet moment and others lamenting that the video taker had violated the couple’s privacy. (The couple has not publicly identified themselves or made their opinion on the video known.) As the Globe states, the driver later glimpsed a professional photographer capturing the proposal. Therefore, one can assume the proposer knew the moment—staged along a busy roadway—would be romantic, and wanted it documented. But on the other hand, does anyone really expect their special moments to be viewed by thousands of strangers on the internet?
BU Today tapped three experts to get their take on how privacy works when everyone has a camera and a social media account: Kathryn Coduto, a College of Communication assistant professor of media science; Jessica R. Silbey, a School of Law professor of law and the Honorable Frank R. Kenison Distinguished Scholar in Law; and Woodrow Hartzog, a LAW professor of law.
Q&A
With Kathryn Coduto, Jessica R. Silbey, and Woodrow Hartzog
BU Today: So, how much of an invasion of privacy does the viral video feel like to you?
Coduto: One of the things that’s interesting with this story is the fact that it’s an engagement, so it’s a big life milestone for the people involved. I think that makes people more open to strangers capturing it. With milestones—whether it’s an engagement, a graduation, whatever the case—there’s an interesting tension between people wanting to live in the moment, but also wanting it recorded. [And on social media in general], I think there’s this drive toward more candid material. Something people really strive for is presenting what they think of as an authentic self online. So for some people, they’re like, “Yeah, capture these moments!”
I do think there are trade-offs, though. We need to think about why we pull out cameras to record people at all times, not just during major life events. It’s one thing to capture someone’s proposal and use social media to say, “Hey, I have this content and I really want them to see it,” versus, “Here’s someone doing something—let’s pile on and make fun of them.”
Silbey: There’s a difference between getting on a knee and proposing to someone in a public place, knowing people might see you, versus if everything that was said during the proposal [was recorded and included] in a video. If the audio was fully available, I think a lot of people would think that was too much. We’re at a point where we’re very comfortable with images being circulated—whether that’s a good or bad thing—but I’m not sure we’re comfortable with our thoughts or what we say to each other [being widely known]. Plus, that could actually be illegal without someone’s permission.
BU Today: So, knowing that everyone has cameras on them at all times, how much privacy can someone reasonably expect when they’re out in public?
Hartzog: Generally speaking, it shouldn’t be irrational to rely upon some notion of obscurity in public places. [That being said], there’s an intermediate state that most of us spend every single day of our lives in. That’s the state between being completely secluded and being exposed to everyone for all purposes. There’s an implicit risk calculus that we make every time we walk outside. [For example], when you take the trash out in your pajamas, you probably aren’t presuming that the Google Maps car might be driving by right at that moment and put you on the internet for everyone to see, right?
When you combine the ubiquity of everyone having a camera in their pocket with the now-ubiquity of facial-recognition services, not only are we likely to be captured everywhere we go, but we’re likely to be recognized. I think that is an atypical situation where we’ve snuffed out any possibility for obscure, intimate interaction, even in public spaces.
BU Today: The driver’s instinct was to record the proposal, rather than just enjoy the moment they were witnessing. What does it say that our first reaction when we see something special is to reach for our phones?
Coduto: I think for a lot of people, there’s this sense of, “I can’t just see this thing; I have to make sure other people see it.” I think that ties into an influencer-like mentality, where not only are you driven to capture something, but you also get the credit for that capture. You get to have your role in a story.
We talk a lot in my classes about why people are even on social media. I don’t think it’s inherently negative; much of it is about human connection and wanting to be seen. [Where it becomes a problem] is when you have people who can’t look away from their phones, as if reality is more embedded in the phone than in the real world.
Hartzog: Even assuming a valorous intention of, “Oh, wasn’t this fun?” the devices that we carry around in our pockets allow, in two quick clicks, to blast an image out to untold millions. [The viral video] isn’t an insidious act by one person. Rather, [it’s a symptom] of an entire populace that has been conditioned to believe it’s good to share, and you don’t need to think about it. The idea that these tools are designed to encourage us to expose not only ourselves, but also other people, as much as possible, in order to keep these tech companies afloat, is the bigger story here. When you buy into the narrative that you shouldn’t expect privacy in public, you buy into the companies’ arguments that it’s fair game to do whatever you want when you see anyone. Because that’s the way in which these companies stay alive: by making sure that you keep clicking and posting. We’re not users, we’re the used.
The way in which these companies stay alive [is] by making sure that you keep clicking and posting. We’re not users, we’re the used.
BU Today: So, how do we counteract our overexposure?
Silbey: There’s something about the aggregate of all the sharing that’s really screwing up our world. I don’t want to blame that driver either, who was simply like, “I just saw this wonderful thing and I want to spread the joy.” Think about it from the perspective of climate and waste: no one person who gets a Styrofoam cup from Dunkin’ Donuts is to blame for the landfills in the world. But, at some point, we all have to take responsibility for contributing to a global crisis of waste and climate change or we will not survive on this planet. I definitely feel the same way about the internet.
If we’re thinking about regulation and how law can help accomplish the things that we want—which is connection and community—we do need to create protections. We have rules surrounding addictive behaviors and substances. I think social media is slowly going to be thought of as similarly addictive and harmful [from a legal perspective]. Law could implement hard stops—like Massachusetts’ rules against upskirting—so that the screen is a last resort, and [nonconsensual] virality could be considered a harm.
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