Today YouTube caved to a “privacy violation” complaint and took down the video of our conversation with a The Gas Company Tower security manager. What’s most puzzling is the video doesn’t fall into any of the categories in their Community Guidelines. Not even from the Privacy section:

If a video you’ve recorded features people who are readily identifiable and who haven’t consented to being filmed, there’s a chance they’ll file a privacy complaint seeking its removal.

The great majority of the video is of the guy’s torso. But forget that for a minute: We were on a public sidewalk where there is no expectation of privacy.

What’s more, we regarded the encounter as informative and instructive, especially for the guard. Perhaps he’d go back to his supervisors and they’d brush up on the law so building security and photographers can finally all just get along. From our perspective, it was cordial and no one in their right mind (other than paranoid YouTube execs) would agree this discussion on photographers’ rights was a violation of someone’s privacy.  But it seems someone felt the need to file a bogus complaint.

This is setting a scary precedent. So from now on, anyone can complain to YouTube about a video they don’t like of themselves – like all those cops who beat protestors or smash into bicyclists? They’ll just sign up for an account, file a complaint, and – bam – no more public record?

Oh well, it’s not as if that will really make the video go away or anything. We’ll post a new link soon.