Taylor Swift was able to buy her privacy at MSG. What about the rest of us?
Reports that Madison Square Garden temporarily shut off its facial recognition system for Swift’s wedding expose a glaring problem with how the elite wield and control mass surveillance.
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I have my doubts they turned off the face scanning at MSG just for her party. And I also wonder why she thought aligning herself with this venue was such a great idea.
Because she read the article.
Ironically, Swift herself has reportedly used facial recognition at her own concerts to identify stalkers. This “privacy for me, surveillance for thee” attitude feels like a perfect encapsulation of the future we’re already living in: one where wealthy elites can afford privacy, while the rest of us are forced to live in a corporate surveillance panopticon.
The billionaire artist that hangs out with other billionaires and takes her private jet for groceries isn’t a great person? Omg.
Tech executives like Peter Thiel and Sam Altman openly fantasize about a hyperprivatized future with elites nestled in bunkers on private islands, guarded by surveillance tech, robots and drones.
Let them all congregate in their New Zealand bunkers and then nuke the shit out of them. New Zealands sacrifice would be appreciated.
Its a nice thought but it wouldnt work, our land is protected by the gods. The nukes would need to fly through Ranginui’s Sky and there is no way he would allow them to land and cause significant harm to Papatūānuku and her whanau.
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Venues should not be allowed to have this level of surveillance for public events. The way the owner of MSG has uesd it is proof enough, banning people for unrelated reasons because the owner is a massive piece of shit.
There’s no such thing as a good billionaire.
Life’s like a shit sandwich… the more bread you got, the less shit you’ll taste.
If you have the money to spend, then probably yes.
There’s a lesson here: stop being poor
Not privacy related, but … another double standard is that she is against guns yet her security team was armed at her wedding.
Idk I think this is similar to being against exploitative capitalism but also shopping at Walmart because you need to be able to eat.
Exploitative capitalism. A wordier way of saying capitalism.
Sorry, I forgot that we all need a team of armed guards in order to exist.
We don’t because we aren’t millionaire musicians.
You ever seen the stalker that targeted Bjork or some of the unhinged superfan people in South Korea who stalk down KPOP members?
There’s some weird people out there man. I think if you are that famous then yes you kind of do need armed guards like that.
Especially with some of the frothing at the mouth MAGA folks out there who some of them think she’s like a plant or deep state propagandist or some other weird shit I only saw it in passing on some Facebook posts by those people.
Swift is a billionaire
What about non-millionaire/billionaire people with stalkers? People have violent Ex’s, violent coworkers - and rarely, but still happens - violent strangers.
Poor people have lives that are threatened. Domestic abuse/murder is all too common all across the world.
So why is she more valuable?
Those people can carry guns and if they can afford it then they can hire armed guards too.
I don’t make the economic rules but if you can’t afford armed security then yeah, you won’t have armed security I guess.
Lennon was killed by an extreme fan who thought he was being spoken to directly by Lennon though the TV. I’m sure there are an army or swifties with ai chatbots and analise all Instagram posts for clues that she loves them and needs freedom from the relationship she is in.
They didn’t have the best example. But you can’t really expect to guard against guns with knives and tasers. Sometimes you have to use what is available while fighting for change.
The problem with being against guns is that the enforcers are defencers of the “elites” while we’re all just expected to deal with whatever violence is directed at us while we wait for them to show up and do nothing after we’re already a victim… Or if it’s masked kidanppers, rapists, and murderes attacking people in the streets they may, or may not, actually be the “Authorities.”
This was proven by how many people are shot daily, with them ignoring it or at best giving “Thoughts and Prayers”, but we have this MASSIVE manhunt for Luigi because it was a CEO (and a mass murderer, but all legal like) who died. Proven again my how there’s still no justice for the Epstein victims, or how many are sexually assaulted and then blamed for it.
They’ll never protect us, only punish us if we get out of line.
Even if you’re not a billionaire, there are plenty of consumer-grade non/less-lethal self-defense tools available, I’m sure her security could get the military-grade shit though. It would be a nice change of pace to see her actually fight for anything worthwhile, she’s so influential she could change the world overnight. All I’ve ever seen her fight for is more money.
She does, at least she has a compelling argument for it.
I’m not sure I’ve heard her argue about anything
I’d prefer not to have a car, but this country makes it really inconvenient to do it, so I have one. That’s not a double standard, that’s adapting to your reality. Maybe the sec team arrived to the conclusion that they wouldn’t be as effective without them in a society under the 2nd amendment.
It seems she was okay with the security team having guns, but in general, not for the common person. In my mind, adapting to reality (and the 2nd amendment) she should be okay with both groups having guns. I think we (you and I) hold the same position on this.
Great article. It touches on the primary concerns I have with modern surveillance tech, namely:
This concept has crossed my mind as well: privacy becoming a privilege reserved for the super-wealthy; it simply being added to luxuries the underclass should naively strive for, in exchange for their exhaustible time and energy.
Wealthy individuals getting away with crimes is the most terrifying to me. Where either knowing mazes in surveillance infrastructure, or systems explicitly turning a blind eye, could create situations where: there’s no evidence placing the actual perpetrator at a crime-scene, while an innocent person, simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time, is framed with evidence to support it.