Image: Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
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Jeff Jarvis, a journalism professor at the City University of New York, told Motherboard in a phone call that “we need to protect the notion of what is public” and that he does not think “there should be a presumption of privacy in public.” Generally, photographers are allowed to take photos and videos of people if they are in public (meaning they are walking down the street, at a protest, in a park, or are otherwise not on privately-owned land.)
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Cathy Gellis, a lawyer who specializes in civil liberties and technology, said that ultimately Twitter has the right to decide what content is allowed, or not allowed, on its platform, but that doesn’t mean their policy right now is right. It's also worth noting that all of this is highly subjective and thus the decisions will be made by human content moderators who may differ on decisions of newsworthiness or who is a public figure.“It just doesn't put them in a very sensible position, they're going to now decide who's a private person and who's a public person,” Gellis said in a phone call. “And they're going to get this right? And they're going to get this right at scale, and not make any mistakes?” Subscribe to our cybersecurity podcast, CYBER. Subscribe to our new Twitch channel.