The Long Form Troll

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Today there was a post about someone filming people with Meta Glasses without permission and someone was offended by the fact that someone would record people without permission so I pointed to the need for talent release forms and more in order to share content showing other people.

One troll said the common “Oh, you obviously didn’t read the article” to which my answer was “of course not” because the comment was written and phrased in a hostile manner, rather than a sociable one. I didn’t read the article before comment to a human being because I spent five years studying the topic at two universities so my answer is based on university level studies, rather than RTFA. (Read the ducking (intentional spelling) article)

It’s also about common sense and decency. Common sense and decency require people to ask people for permission before filming them, and if it is for broadcast, which social media has become, then a talent release form is required. If a Talent Release Form is not required, or if the rules have been re-written for toxic people to record without permission then that is a serious breach of social etiquette.

People that have studied factual television, news and documentary are well aware of tiny cameras that have been used in investigative journalism to film in situations where getting permission would have made the journalism impossible but they often state that the footage was acquired that way, and it has to be cleared legally, to ensure that such filming was warranted and justified.

I have a deep passion for documentary, for cinéma vérité, for observational documentary and for the life unawares that Vertov wrote or spoke about a century ago. I love the idea of filming life unawares and documenting life, without the camera being noticed, or performed to.

In the end it’s worth remarking that in this day and age, of being mostly ignored except when we comment on specific topics, having a few people comment within minutes is suspicious and encourages me towards the conclusion that a troll farm was primed to respond to the subject matter.

In the age of trolls on Antisocial media, social media are irrelevant.