Poll - How should Social Coop Handle Booking Photos?
Poll Created Wed 30 Nov 2022 12:05AM
How should social.coop handle mugshots / booking photos Closed Fri 9 Dec 2022 12:01AM
As local news reporters move off of twitter and on to fediverse, they will bring with them valuable local news, and also various practices surrounding booking photos / mug shots. In many places these photos are a public record for the safety of the arrested and the community (if your family member has been arrested, you will know, and not assume kidnap etc, if you recognize someone's mug shot you might want to avoid that person).
Reporters however have a habit of posting mugshots. The people in the photos have not been convicted of a crime, on the fediverse the photos will be replicated across many servers, including ours. If someone was arrested but was released without charges, or was convicted and have served their time, their face has now been spread around the fediverse.
Should social.coop request the news/reporter instances put hashtags on mugshots so we can filter them out? Should we do nothing?
I am fine with asking individual reporters to reconsider or do CW, but I would like to balance that doesn't create more headache for people trying to put their lives back together post-release (since without reintegration we all suffer) but I also want to get updates on my local news.
Related Resources
Chicago Tribune Booking Photo Guidelines
Florida Politics: Gov. Ron DeSantis Monday signed a new law (SB 1046) that will require mug shot publishers to remove booking photos if requested by the person featured in the image. The new law comes with penalties. If the publisher doesn’t remove the photo within 10 days of written notice, they face a daily $1,000 penalty
Results
| Results | Option | % of voters | Voters | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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This seems like an issue | 29% | 4 |
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| Not sure yet | 64% | 9 |
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| Not an issue | 7% | 1 |
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|
| Undecided | 0% | 0 |
14 of 14 people have voted (100%)
M. Page-Lieberman - @[email protected]
Wed 30 Nov 2022 1:19AM
Well reasoned!
Ed Summers
Wed 30 Nov 2022 2:51AM
Is this a general question, or has an actual case come up at social.coop? If the latter I think it would be useful to consider the specific situation? I feel like I don't understand enough to make an informed decision otherwise.
Evan Boehs
Wed 30 Nov 2022 3:35AM
Social.coop being a much more minor instance, I don't think other instances would respond well (if at all) to us
freescholar
Wed 30 Nov 2022 4:49AM
The hashtag idea sounds good but I do not know how hashtags work. I am guessing a reporter would hashtag the image and then anyone could search items with #mugshot hashtags and it kinda groups them into a /mugshot category?
What if some go untagged?
How do they stay hashtagged when replicated in the fediverse?
Stephanie Jo Kent
Wed 30 Nov 2022 1:37PM
This does seem important as a matter of principle at least. There's long been evidence of racial profiling, for one thing. Also activists are sometimes arrested for nonviolent protest and that shouldn't be used against them. I'm also not sure how it would managed and whether it's a reasonable burden to be put on moderators for what would likely (?) be a low incidence event.
dphiffer
Wed 30 Nov 2022 2:12PM
I am open to adopting a policy on this (I share the underlying concern about mugshots) but it seems premature to say if requesting that other instances take action is the right approach before we have a case study to point to. Full disclosure: I work in journalism, but am not a reporter.
Andrew Shead
Wed 30 Nov 2022 3:56PM
We are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. Posting mugshots on the Fediverse will forever brand arrestees as criminals. As in news generally, the nasty stuff tends to stick in the mind and isn't expunged by later news exonerating a person of an alleged crime. Journalists who post mugshots are effectively defaming the person photographed.
I recommend that we explicitly prohibit the practice, explore a way to remove any that appear on our instance, and avoid potential legal liability.
Ana Ulin
Wed 30 Nov 2022 6:36PM
I like the spirit of this sense check, but it also feels like an oddly specific thing to bring up for general community input (well, or for a portion of the community, as Loomio is saying this was "seen by 43, notified 3", which seems like a lot smaller than total membership). Seems like a question to bring up with the CWG, maybe put it on one of the meeting agendas and discuss with them how to proceed?
Mica Fisher
Fri 2 Dec 2022 6:36PM
Just wanted to update that this came up with the user @[email protected], and as the mod on duty I reached out to request that they mark mugshots as sensitive content. They were cooperative and have started doing that with recent posts!
dphiffer Wed 30 Nov 2022 3:20PM
My workplace has an account on Newsie Social. I'm willing to open a discussion with the site admin Jeff Brown if that seems like a helpful way forward. Several of my colleagues also have accounts on journa.host so I'm confident I could do the same with Adam Davidson, who runs that instance.
@[email protected] Wed 30 Nov 2022 4:13PM
It would probably be good to start the discussion now, before some larger debate spirals out of control. At least seeing how this info is presented on reddit, it can cause social problems.
Graham Wed 30 Nov 2022 2:57PM
This must be a US thing? Pretty sure this sort of practice is illegal in the UK, or should be if not.
@[email protected] Wed 30 Nov 2022 4:10PM
the practice of unofficially disseminating the photos?
this is information is considered property of the people under my government. The cost of NOT posting the booking info would probably be too high for police departments to ever consider not doing this.
@[email protected] Wed 30 Nov 2022 9:42PM
meta question @Ana Ulin - how do things get brought up to the CWG?
@[email protected] Wed 30 Nov 2022 9:43PM
also I didn't want to spam everyone so didn't do notification
Ana Ulin Thu 1 Dec 2022 1:32AM
Good question. There are a few ways (which we should probably document better, which is a common refrain lately 😅):
Start a thread on the Community working group's section of Loomio (https://www.loomio.com/socialcoop-community-working-group/), which is also linked in the description of our root Loomio page (https://www.loomio.com/socialcoop/).
Join one of their meetings (and you can see the times of upcoming meetings in that same Loomio area).
In a pinch, DM on Mastodon individual CWG members to ask for guidance (who they are is listed at the top of the Loomio area for the CWG).
Personally I would start a Loomio thread in the CWG area, because I like having the conversations in the open and starting asynchronous feels like a lower lift to me.
@[email protected] · Wed 30 Nov 2022 2:18PM
Not to call out an individual, but this came up based on a reporter from newsie.social posts booking photos. The user does do the effort of investigating the crime and adding some context (so it's not a copy+paste from police website) but there's only so much you can do in a toot.
The answer of "don't follow this person" doesn't quite work since I do want to follow the reporter for local news.