Tales From The Video Store...

Wednesday night there's an interview with Slater on 60 minutes (tv3 7:30pm) they'll be talking about him campaigning for city council and every time I see the ad for the programme and his dopey almost drunk looking face pops on screen I have this sudden urge to punch my television.  I personally think the man is despicable but I know a lot of people agree with what he's doing and they really like him, each to their own.  Im not going to pick a fight with someone because they like his take on things, I however, find his actions (we're talking about his name suppression campaign here) idiotic.  I think the point he's trying to get across is a valid enough one, that people shouldn't be able to get name suppression just because they are famous or wealthy, but going on a name and shame crusade against people is not the way to go about things.  Clearly the laws surrounding name suppression have to be looked at and changed especially with the internet being such a big part of society these days.  But what Slater is doing to try and remedy the situation just proves how ignorant he is, surely Slater could use his blog and the ability to reach so many people to try and get laws changed without putting people (be it wittingly or unwittingly) in harms way.

Anyway here's a blog I posted for class, I thought it was sort of interesting, hopefully others feel the same. 

How much privacy can the everyday person expect in a world where people use social sites like twitter to tell us what they've had for lunch, how much work they have left to do before the end of the day, if their boss is being mean and nasty or even if their bowel movement was normal. Does anyone really care THAT much about what you're doing that they need an almost hourly update on what mundane things you're doing around the office or at home? But what if the privacy you expected was a little more serious than having you twitter or facebook account locked down so only your closest cyber buddies could see what you're up too..... What if it was the information surrounding a terrible tragedy in your life, what then?

Cameron Slater, a New Zealand online blogger was recently convicted on 9 out of the 10 charges of breaching name suppression orders: each of these convictions came with a $750 fine as well as court costs. Most of the people he chose to 'name and shame' were high profile defendants some of whom had been convicted of sexual assault. But one of the people whose name suppression he chose to breach was the victim of a sexual assault, and he did so knowingly and without remorse. In a statement outside the Auckland courts on the 14th of September Slater said he had "no regrets, and was not remorseful". Well im sure the sexual assault victim he happily outed will be pleased as punch to hear that.

In the court transcript the mentioning of the charge (charge number 2, on page 59 if you want to find it in the transcripts) is as follows "The article also identified the victim of the offending in the following way. "He faces a raft of charges including four charges of raping his wife, unlawful sexual connection with his wife and abduction for sex" the blog this was posted in also had an easily decodable pictogram of the accused. This gave the people reading enough information to figure out who the victim of the crime was.

In class everyone seemed to have a differing idea on what privacy is, and indeed most people do. What is private to some isn't to others, so I can't tell you that yes Slater was right or no he was in the wrong, I can only give you my opinion. In the end it is really up to you to decide if Cameron Slater was rightly or wrongly convicted, or even if a $750 fine is enough of a punishment. I just know that if he had outed someone I love and care about in this way..... I'd want more than a $750 fine to be his punishment.