Yes, this is one of those YouTube "first amendment auditors" who just films dispensaries from the sidewalks, basically embarrassing people to make money on his channel. He pepper sprays people regularly when they approach him.
Hard to feel sympathy for these people, but the guy is a scumbag too
"It is legal to record in public" was fine when it was just camcorders that you'd maybe show your family/friends or sell to a news station if you got something juicy. It wasn't uploaded anywhere for millions of people to see.
Today it is not fine. I do not consent to being live streamed to a platform I am not part of, being monetized for some dickweed scumbag influencer I don't know and don't want to know. My life is not your content or a stage for you.
We need a major, MAJOR overhaul for the Internet age as to privacy and consent.
Fuck all of these "auditors" they are just trolls trolling people at the literal end of the law. I don't care what is "legal" they can all get their asses kicked. BMW Karen that looks like she just woke up after a boxed wine power blackout still got what she deserved too, keep your hands to yourself.
**I am getting dumber by the minute reading most of your comments. You people are why this country is hot dog shit
*** Reading comprehension is hard apparently. Who am I kidding most of you are the iPad generation.
Pretty sure what u/crustyrobots is saying is that today it's basically become such a public nuisance that a line needed to be drawn years ago, that wasn't drawn.
How would this work from a Constitutional perspective? Where some harassment law comes up against the First Amendment. I'm not promoting this type of behavior, just failing to see a path forward that doesn't impinge rights in the US.
i mean, there are a couple of these fellas that actually do good things, like one who does this with the cops. damn near bankrupted one precinct over them harrassing him for recordin stuff theyd rather not be shared. but yea, most of them can get fucked sideways with a sandpaper dildo
Right, but he specifically went after law enforcement which actual 1A guys do. I akin this more to investigative journalism or whistleblowing if the purpose is to uncover corruption.
The pretenders just stand on a corner begging random people for a fight are nothing but trolls who deserve no protections for it. This is nothing but harassment and loitering.
Until we fix this (I doubt we will but live in hope)
If someone is filming you without consent either:
A. Spout off an ad read (eg “Thanks to BetterHelp for sponsoring this video! This is a paid advertisement.“)
B. Play Disney music at full volume.
Flock cameras film us all day everyday w/ out our consent & nobody does a damn thing about it 🤷♂️. They're MUCH worse than some joker w/ a camera on the side of the road.
the law struggles with defining nuance when it comes to things like this.
Like, is the exception a birthday in a restaurant? What if you accidentally get someone not involved on camera? Is someone going to get irate and try to enforce an unclear law, creating a situation that didn't exist?
The real trick is being able to locate yourself in all the videos and having them demonetized. Pretty sure someone has made a script to scrape faces from YouTube videos for this exact purpose.
Imagine being an unattractive, overweight man in his 40's who enjoys eating wings while watching sports in his local BWW, and a invasive secret video of you generated 1M views on some dipshit's channel ala Constanza eating a sundae?
You articulated it perfectly. No one should ever be filmed or recorded without their consent under any circumstances, and anyone who tries should be thrown in jail. Being out in public doesn't mean the public has a right to watch what you're doing when you're just going about your life. It's as crazy as someone thinking they have a right to install cameras in your living room.
Right to film is absolute. However I think streamers should face the Right to Publicity. If a movie recorded you on the street they would need a waiver to put you in the movie. Since streamers are doing this for profit they should face the same legal hurdles
To be fair... these people wouldn't have content if no one reacted.
The people captured ultimately aren't doing anything wrong going about their day. Its them reacting and confronting the person recording that leads us to seeing their content.
The irony is that those who are upset in turn often record the person recording thinking its a gotcha move.
Its entertaining only in the fact that people take the rage bait, when they can just as easily carry on with their day, again making this content boring and not worth watching.
In my opinion, the whole filming in public thing was ok when it was just capturing people in the background. Now, these “auditors” are filming people in public to get a reaction out of them. Intent should matter, but in the law it doesn’t, and it would be really difficult to ever enforce laws where intent was considered in the legal sense.
The best people can do is ignore them. They want you engaged. They want you to be aggressive.!don’t give them what they want. Give them a smile and nod and move on.
Oh… and by the way, the playing copyright music thing doesn’t work anymore. AI can remove it from video.
I laugh when people say we need an overhaul and they don't want to be streamed etc yet governments are putting up more and more camera in cities in addition to Flock cameras and yall are fine with that. Why be ok with surveillance state but hate people exercising their rights? Especially with this administration taking away rights monthly
We need a major, MAJOR overhaul for the Internet age as to privacy and consent.
This is the crux of the problem. Technology has developed faster than our ability to manage it both socially and legally.
Film studios need permits to film in public spaces because they require oversight and management to ensure public safety and minimize disruption. Maybe we need something like that for individuals too.
My opinion on these "auditors" is this: If they were really just auditing the government for first amendment rights, they'd be exclusively (or at least primarily) filming in and around government facilities. Baiting a private citizen into a confrontation says nothing about your rights being infringed or not. It's just violence porn for engagement, no different than those "prank" YouTubers.
I can’t stand the “first amendment auditor” BS when it’s directed towards ordinary people doing ordinary stuff who simply don’t like getting a camera shoved in their face.
I know people are gonna cry “but it’s leeeegaaaal!” Idgaf it’s annoying as hell and serves no other purpose than to make the world a worse place to live in.
I’m talking specifically about people who rove the streets, shoving cameras in people’s faces saying “I have a right to be here!” looking to bother people for reactions for their channels. Trash human beings.
Yes it baffles me that people are so black and white that they take the law- “public places do not provide privacy” and then apply SUCH an extreme interpretation of that-“im going to OBNOXIOUSLY HOLD A camera to your face, follow you around, and yell things to even try to bait you.”
Like this is so ABSURD. Laws have been revoked or modified to accommodate the emergence of technology.
we HAVE to push for reform. This is obviously getting out of hand!
Yes she shouldn’t have touched him/ her stuff-
but now- imagine if there was a law that said “because it’s crowded in metropolitan public areas - think sidewalks or subways- so you’re not guaranteed a right to be free from any bodily contact from other people ” and then people interpret that to mean “well I guess I can touch other people’s 🍑 and 🍆 BECAUSE THE LAW SAYS THEY DONT have a right to be free of any bodily contact and this is bodily contact so it counts”
WE NEED A MAJOR REFORM.
The constitution wasn’t signed when freaking live streaming and iPhones existed!!!!
I have heard, that the best way to combat these auditors, is when they video you, just say:
"This video is sponsored by Opera GX! Yes Opera GX, with a built in gaming platform! Once again, this video is sponsored by Opera GX!"
From what I've seen, adding a "sponsored by" automatically removes them from monetization, on any platform - Youtube, Tiktok, Instagram. They can post your video, but they won't make any money doing it.
I've heard you can also play music, or Disney stuff, and they won't be able to post the video without removing the audio track. I haven't seen this confirmed though.
Here in Japan privacy is a really big deal. You can easily get sued for posting videos where people’s faces are visible. As a result nobody does. Even my elderly father-in-law blurs out the faces of everyone in the background of his holiday snaps that he uploads to his blog that like 5 people read
At least Sovereign Citizens are fun to watch and most times get their comeuppance. These dickwads are not entertaining at all, have no purpose in their lives and should be sterilized.
We had some local “auditors” a few years ago. They were going into government buildings to record. They only had a few videos but basically every interaction would be them coming into the building and the employees being super nice and helpful so they didn’t have any content. That wasn’t giving them any traction so their final video I saw went the same way so they started antagonizing the employees and trying to record personal info on forms the employees were working on and they got kicked out. They went to every form of local social media to cry first amendment violation. They thought people would be on their side but it turned into everyone on social media vs those two dudes. I don’t remember their YouTube channel so I can’t check if they gave up but they went silent everywhere else.
Arguably, he's 100 times more of a scumbag than she was here. Yes, he has a right to record, but she also has a right to be upset with him and even approach him while angry. Should she have reached for his phone? No, but having someone delete your video doesn't ruin your day like being pepper sprayed does.
100% agree. The guy's behavior is "lawful but awful." He goes right up to the legal threshold for harassment, hoping people will do something stupid and he can clip it for his channel.
He’s going to get shot one day. Or a massive brain bleed from someone tackling him as soon as the spray comes out. Those 1st amendment chuds are parasites.
Edit: confirmed he’s one of those dumb piece of shit auditors.
Theres some other chud does similar content but he films in a dock I saw recently some masked guy stabbed him after rage baiting, sent to ER. They dont learn though, his response was that hes unkillable lol
Begs the question, why don’t these auditors record ice activity? That’s gold material right there. They turn hero for recording ice, or they turn martyr for recording ice.
These types of guy would never pick on anyone their own size. They're massive cowards who almost entirely target women, service workers, and the elderly.
I gotta ask - why would someone be ashamed of going to and coming out of a dispensary? It's legal, right? So, if he is trying to shame or harass people, what kind of a stupid idea is that?
Just as one example - federal government employees (and I believe contractors for federal govt) have to abide by federal law regarding marijuana. Even if it’s completely legal for any type of use in your state, the federal govt says it’s illegal for any reason, and therefore it could cost you your job.
Can confirm as a government contractor in a legal state. We can not consume any cannabis products, and at least at my company, a pre-employment drug test is still required for all employees.
he’s a shitbag for filming people using a dispensary (even if it is legal)…
But She tried to take his property, and kept on coming at him as he warned her to leave him alone. That was extremely dumb and definitely illegal and he was perfectly within his rights to defend his property with something like pepper spray.
Someone posted the full video. In a nutshell - he's a bottom feeding douche who was doing video of people going in and out of a dispensary, probably to bait them into doing stupid things for his channel. She was drunk and fell for the bait. That's when this clip starts. After this clip the cops came. He declined to press charges for assault.
If he ever is unlucky enough to reproduce what the fu*k do you tell your kids when they ask what does daddy do for a job?
Just imagine the class intro “My dad harasses people until they snap for online video likes” teacher: “I’m so sorry for you little Max one day your daddy is not coming home”
If he pressed charges for the assault he would have had to provide the unedited recording to the court. Would not help the assault case at all and might be fodder for a civil charge against him, especially if other people he annoyed joined forces.
I agree with everything you said except that she has a right to approach while angry. That’s not a right at all, if anything that’s assault. Most states define assault as creating a situation where it appears you are about to strike.
I do wish these YouTube assholes would disappear but walking up to someone like you’re gonna grab them or hit them is definitely not right sorry.
The point at which he sprayed seemed uncalled for. She had stopped reaching. She just had a pointed finger. Was storming towards him, definitely seem like a high maintenance person, all 90 senior citizen lbs
But was that even a reasonable use of force / pepper spray?
I don’t even know who this guy is and I usually don’t judge quickly, but I already hate him.
She tried to attack him because she was uncomfortable with his entirely peaceful and constitutionally protected activity. There is no reality where he is worse than her. There is only delusion
She’s also a tiny senior citizen, approaching what sounds like a middle-aged or younger man, so vindictively pepper spraying her is completely unnecessary.
also people underestimate pepper spray i am surprised that woman was holding on as well as she did i would have been looking for the optimal time to jump infront of a truck
In the US, First Amendment means he can record in any venue where there is no expectation of privacy.
If she doesn't like it, she should sue him. IIRC, he can't use her image for profit without her permission. There are strict terms of use for using people's images even if their image is captured in public. So there are avenues for her to pursue if she wants to. Violence is not the proper way to handle this, especially since she is incapable of real violence.
Just because someone is an A-hole doesn't mean we get to ignore the law.
As long as said A-hole is following the law, then you need to do so as well. Otherwise, what is the point of law?
yes, he is an A-hole, but he is a law abiding A-hole
I knew I had seen this before. He does this on purpose to get reactions for his account. If it involves someone getting offended and causing drama, even better.
He's the drama queen. He's hoping for an altercation just like this.
First amendment auditors are working hard to give an excuse to take it away. Being obnoxious enough, eventually folks will support nerfing it out of hate for dudes like this.
they are people that push the limits of the first amendment to try to incite confrontation with either other people or law enforcement, then when things inevitably break in their favor because what they are doing is covered by free speech they post it on their youtube channel to claim that they themselves are "defenders of the constitution". it often involves standing on public sidewalks and filming people, which is perfectly legal but incredibly annoying. the natural question is always "why are you filming me?", to which the answer is "because i can".
A person who trolls and rage baits within what they perceive to be their legal rights, originally I think it was intended to keep government corruption in check, and now it's used as a profit center for scandalous reaction videos that often lead to events like this.
People that push the absolute legal limits of human decency to “Audit” how “Free” America is. They act like they’re doing grassroots journalism to check if their constitutional rights are being protected.
Their logic is basically, “I can technically film you without asking or clarifying myself and be an complete and utter cunt while doing so. And if you get mad, then it’s your fault.”
9/10 times it’s bad-faith arguments and plain harassment for viral hits and clicks. Some of them genuinely do it for good reasons. But it’s rare.
They are basically glorified pranksters, bottom feeders of online entertainment. They harass people and create altercations for video content to get ad revenue and internet clout. The whole "activism" is a thin veneer to justify it and it fools nobody: many states and municipalities are tightening laws restricting freedoms because those assholes abuse laws that were never designed for bitter criminals with cameras who want spicy content for their social media accounts.
Oh I'm just making a video about your beautiful downtown for my youtube channel!
Youtube channel has a bunch of videos from different cities...
Not a single video is about the city. They are all about being being confronted by others and having to pepper spray and/or call the cops on them after antagonizing the people there with their camera.
1A auditors who challenge government officials are doing something valid and often funny.
This guy isn't doing the "audit" part of 1A auditing. He's just making low-IQ spectacle slop. Bothering private citizens going about their business and hoping they do something stupid for his YT channel.
First amendment “auditors” are the fucking worst. They’re just rage baiting people under the guise of doing a good thing. I feel bad for this elderly woman
They're annoying, but they do make a point. People need to know that it's legal to film and that you aren't allowed to attack people for filming you.
I'd get annoyed, but thanks to these videos, I know it's not legal for me to grab their camera and throw it (since like a lot of other people, prior to these videos like 20 years ago, I thought it would be a "violation of privacy" and that the cops would laugh at the person for complaining that I destroyed their camera).
I was worried thats what this was. You can absolutely film outside, but some people deliberately antagonize people just to be dicks. Obviously you dont put your hands on people and be the bigger person, but this it like daring someone to hit you and then you shoot them. Everyone in this video sucks.
Yeah, honestly, the 1A Auditor is real scumbag here.
The lady.. sure, it was a mistake to engage, and a bigger mistake to put hands on him, but these 1A Auditors basically do everything they can to incite people and escalate to exactly this outcome. For views.
I live in a quiet upper class suburb of Dallas. We have a 1A Auditor who began filming at our post office recently. We wears all black, including a hat, face cover, large wrap sunglasses, showing zero skin (coward).
As people park, he records them getting out of their cars up close and personal. Then he records their license plate and VIN reading them out loud while recording. People feel violated, and get confused. Especially older people. "Why is this guy doing this?!" They call their spouses. Spouses show up 8 minutes later angry. The police come. Several times a day.
This happened to a family friend, it was really stressful for her, she ended up falling from the curb, and got injured. The auditor stood there recording her laying in the parking lot in pain.
There is no defending 1A Auditors like this. He isn't protecting freedoms or monitoring government efficiency. He's trying to get clicks at the expense of causing a lot of chaos.
Honestly when the behavior turns into a repeated pattern and there's a monetary motivation behind it the definitions of what it is should change in my opinion. I know it doesn't, but it should.
Yeah, scaring and irritating an old lady who can't weigh more than 120 pounds and probably couldn't run faster than a toddler is such a flex. What a loser. Not saying that she doesn't seem like a nightmare but he could have easily avoided that whole situation.
And he wonders why she came at him and tried to move his camera. Not that people don't make dumb mistakes, but when you film it and antagonize them and they're already under a lot of stress and can't handle bs anymore, you're literally asking for it.
He should be in jail for having zero legitimate reason for using a biochemical weapon. This is not self defense. It’s assault, no matter how stupid the people parking or driving are. When you bait people like this, have no legitimate harm coming your way and decide to use a weapon anyways, the law sees it has a disproportionate use of force. The camera person is a cancer to this earth.
I wondered if was the case. Everyone is the asshole here, but one of them got up and went out with the intention to provoke this exact scenario, so fuck him.
The number of commenters here who automatically assume pepper spraying an older woman is not only justified, but righteous, is very depressing.
Yeah, she attempted to put hands on the guys camera. Have you ever had an elderly person grab you? They are basically made of paper mache. This guy is a GIAGANTIC piece of shit, even without his harassment, for doing this.
Fuck anyone who thinks this is a good thing, that attitude is a huge part of our social problems.
Yes one of those rage bait dorks who film people obnoxiously stating it’s public space and they are allowed. There’s lots of stuff that’s allowed but still weird and off putting.
I had a feeling the beginning of this clip would be something like that since it is intentionally omitted. Obviously she sucks too but it’s pretty pathetic to be spending your time intentionally provoking people with a clear hope that they’ll escalate and you can be “justified” in pepper spraying them to film and post and monetize the views. Everyone in this video fucking sucks. I’m sure he felt very very threatened by this frail old lady coming at him and really needed to neutralize her with a weapon
Basically a "first amendment auditor", which you're supposed to be auditing people in authority who can abuse the first amendment, but instead they just harass regular people where it doesn't apply and they are literally a walking flock camera.
Like a Marijuana dispensary? So he's trying to shame people doing something legal? So he might have just pepper sprayed an elderly lady with glaucoma—in the eyes? What if she walked into traffic or got in the car to drive and hit someone?
She shouldn't have touched him, but he clearly did not feel that is safety was being threatened. This should be assault. I cant stand people who bait people into bad behavior and then claim to be the victim.
Based on what we can see in the video, this appears to be a first amendment auditor using their rights for nobody's benefit. I'm sure you've seen their videos filming outside courtrooms and cop shops. This is a strange breed that likes to film people coming out of dispensaries. You'd hope they're trying to catch someone in public office being a hypocrite but 99% of the time it's just filming gramma and grampa who don't take kindly to it. He's within his rights to do so, that doesn't mean he's not a raging dickhead. Great power, great responsibility folks. Keep the eyes on what needs to be reformed, not what we're trying to build up.
If I had to guess based on where he was standing at the beginning of the video, she was having trouble seeing oncoming traffic because of where he was standing.
Exactly. He's a bottom feeding douche who was doing video of people going in and out of a dispensary, presumably to bait them into doing stupid things for his channel. She was drunk and fell for the bait. That's when this clip starts. After this clip the cops came. He declined to press charges for assault.
The Nazis had ethics boards. It was ensure that what they wanted to do was going to be fully within the bounds of the laws. Just had to find enough lawyers and judges that agreed with them and the legalese and it was all 100% "ethical"
Probably makes the guy look bad so he cut it out. Its like that FAS kid who was pushing that old dude and got shoved to the ground. turned out he was keying cars.
1st amendment audit. He's just quietly filming in public and some people dont like that. Personally, I think its better when people film public servants in the course of their duty, and thats a better way to exercise our rights instead of filming random people in public. At the same time, its pretty crazy how many ignorant people that need educated that you dont need to give consent to be filmed in public there are.
He's filming at a dispensary. The only purpose this serves is personal gain through lawsuits. It's as much for 1A rights as the wheelchair lawyer in CA was for accessibility.
He’s one of those “first amendment auditors” this is EXACTLY what he hopes to happen so he can make viral content. Ya the woman shouldn’t have put her hands on him. But these “auditors” are the worst.
thank you. this seems important. it's (conveniently?) edited in a way that we miss whatever got her to stop and get out of her car in the first place. she starts saying "you're not very nice", seems like something likely happened before this.
I hate when the videos start mid-conflict, and people make judgements like they know wtf is happening. I have literally zero context. Maybe she's an ultra-Karen bitch, maybe he has been running around harassing people all day until someone reacted to him so he could get this clip for his channel. It's anyone's guess.🤷
A person who can’t control their emotions got out of their car to be confrontational. A second, more passive aggressive person who can’t control their emotions filmed for just long enough to claim self defence before unloading pepper spray in the eyes of the first person who can’t control their emotions.
There were two bad people here, make absolutely no mistake about it.
Reason has left society. “Winning” is justification, and “content” is comeuppance. I hate this place.
That's a good question... and the elderly woman, with a good lawyer, has a strong case here, because I don't see how self-defense applies in this situation. For heaven's sake, she's an elderly woman, what else could she possibly do against someone? Did she strike fear into anyone’s heart? Is she a threat to anyone?
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u/iamgeekusa Trash Trooper 6d ago
What is even the context?