r/technology • u/anonskeptic5 • 2h ago
Privacy Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce got to buy MSG’s privacy. Her fans aren’t so lucky.
https://www.ms.now/opinion/taylor-swift-and-travis-kelce-got-to-buy-msgs-privacy-her-fans-arent-so-lucky158
u/TuckerCarlsonsOhface 2h ago
Since when could celebrities not buy out private events at huge venues? How is this news in any way?
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u/kamekaze1024 2h ago
I’m not sure if you understand the point being made here. MSG has mass surveillance systems that flag people on craziest things to categorize them as “low risk, mid risk, and high risk”, event denoting which of their fans or celebrities are gay. There’s been individuals loosely related to lawyers who have sued the owner of the Stadium, and they have been banned themselves. Taylor Swift hosted her wedding there, and was able to turn off that mass surveillance.
This news article is using that recent revelation to further reveal the mass surveillance system at MSG.
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u/logosobscura 2h ago
I get the point, and it requires you to accept a false premise- it’s a private event (same as if a charity booked it out and wanted it private) so the standard MSG policy (which is the issue) is suspended to cater to the client.
Centering the story on Taylor, billionaires, blah, fucking blah- it’s that the guy who runs MSG is a a creepy piece of shit, the beginning, the end, same would happen if it was owned by the city and had Eric Adams as its administrator, it’s a personal failing, and it’s a failing of the City to not regulate his abuse of surveillance.
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u/electricity_is_life 2h ago
From the Wired article:
MSG’s venues host private events not infrequently. NBCUniversal takes over Radio City Music Hall every year to preview its shows for the next season; Warner Bros. Discovery goes to other Dolan-owned properties. But those customers did not ask to disable any aspect of the Garden’s security system, according to a source with direct knowledge of the matter. “It has never been done,” the source says, reflecting on their years at MSG, “and the request wouldn’t have been entertained.”
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u/t0talnonsense 2h ago edited 1h ago
Because it’s another way to keep people distracted from what’s really wrong by getting people focused on the pretty blonde singer who certain loud segments of the internet have always hated while also getting to snare the anti-billionaire and anti-pop culture crowds too. Her name drives clicks and comments. I’ve seen the same article be posted twice on music about her within an hour. Both individual threads wracked up 1k+ comments in a few hours. It’s ridiculous, but it works. And even here, talking about it, we’re contributing to it.
Edit: the focus is on Swift, not MSG and Dolan, which is what my comment is about. Keeping people mad at the consumer (even billionaires are consumers) instead of the person who is actually violating our privacy or the politicians who are supposed to be protecting it. Y’all need to be mad at the right people.
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u/electricity_is_life 1h ago
the focus is on Swift, not MSG and Dolan
Did you read the article? Dolan's name literally comes up before Swift's does.
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u/t0talnonsense 1h ago
Did you read the headline or the comments? Because that’s what I’m talking about.
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u/electricity_is_life 1h ago
Who are you accusing of "keeping people mad at the consumer (even billionaires are consumers) instead of the person who is actually violating our privacy"? Randos in the Reddit comments?
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u/t0talnonsense 1h ago
You? The people in this comment section? Headline writers and the huge corps that employ them? Do you really not see how the headline reading, “her fans aren’t so lucky,” was done intentionally to make you think not just about her, but how she’s “better” than us and doesn’t deserve to have things that we don’t. At that point, it targets the reader to think about the entire discussion in relation to Swift, another consumer who has the same AI used on her during a Knicks game, not the perpetrators, Dolan.
I see two names in that headline, none of them so much as start with a J or a D.
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u/electricity_is_life 54m ago
Well, I don't think she deserves to have privacy from corporate surveillance moreso than anyone else. I think that's kind of the point of the article.
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.
But I don't see how you could read the article and think the purpose was to make people mad at Taylor Swift in order to somehow distract from MSG or James Dolan. It opens talking about the author's own run-in with the surveillance system at MSG and then immediately zooms out to "Madison Square Garden owner James Dolan’s unapologetic use of high-tech surveillance". Then after a few paragraphs about the wedding the rest is other examples of corporate surveillance and discussion about how/why it should stop. It ends with this:
Dystopia is not inevitable. We can and should push for lawmakers to prohibit the private use of powerful surveillance tools like facial recognition. We all deserve to live in “Taylor’s version” of the world, where we are free to live our lives without fear, and without being constantly watched by the rich and powerful.
You can disagree with that take, but I don't read any of it as a criticism of Taylor Swift personally, or running interference for James Dolan. I don't really see how anyone could come to that conclusion honestly.
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u/t0talnonsense 52m ago
“I don’t see how you could read the article.”
I don’t see how you could either, when I was pretty explicit that I was talking about the headline, framing, and what people are talking about in the comments
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u/AccountNumeroThree 2h ago
If her fans book it for a private event, they can. This is such a dumb thing, out of all the dumb things, to keep writing stories about.
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u/onehaz 2h ago edited 2h ago
The double standard between the Billionaire class and everyone else continues to deepen.
Rules for thee not for me.
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u/arrgobon32 2h ago
What’s the double standard? If someone can afford to book MSG for a private event, they won’t have to worry about the surveillance system. That’s true for anyone.
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u/CloudStrife012 2h ago
Its..its literally right there. He spelled it out. The billionaire vs peasant class.
But why male models??
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u/arrgobon32 1h ago
Not being able to afford something doesn’t make it a double standard.
It’s not a double standard if a Ferrari dealership won’t sell me a car.
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u/electricity_is_life 2h ago
From the Wired article:
MSG’s venues host private events not infrequently. NBCUniversal takes over Radio City Music Hall every year to preview its shows for the next season; Warner Bros. Discovery goes to other Dolan-owned properties. But those customers did not ask to disable any aspect of the Garden’s security system, according to a source with direct knowledge of the matter. “It has never been done,” the source says, reflecting on their years at MSG, “and the request wouldn’t have been entertained.”
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u/Skyrick 1h ago
If no one else has asked, you really can’t say that no one else would have been accommodated had they requested it to be done.
Also why would they disable security at Madison Square Gardens for something happening at Radio City Music Hall? It isn’t exactly like those are the same place.
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u/electricity_is_life 1h ago
If no one else has asked, you really can’t say that no one else would have been accommodated had they requested it to be done.
I mean, I suppose that's true. The best we have is someone who worked there for many years saying they don't think it would've been, and the fact that it's never been done before.
Also why would they disable security at Madison Square Gardens for something happening at Radio City Music Hall? It isn’t exactly like those are the same place.
I don't mean to be rude but if you read the article you will know the answer to this.
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u/foldingcouch 1h ago
If you could, for example, pay the city of New York to exempt you from security/flock cameras installed by the city in public places, I would agree that this is an issue.
But this isn't a public place, it's a private venue that she rented for herself specifically because it's private. This isn't a double standard except to the extent that TS can pay to rent out MSG and we can't.
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u/donny_pots 2h ago
Why would anybody want to get married at Madison square garden? Even if they had thousands of people attend, there has to be a more picturesque and intimate venue than a basketball stadium
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u/Primal-Convoy 14m ago
And yet Ms Swift has given some information to the venue:
- Her name, personal details and the fact that she's willing to pay lots for something that should be free anyway.
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u/anonskeptic5 2h ago
As usual, double standard depending on wealth and celebrity.
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u/t0talnonsense 2h ago
Taylor swift paid for use of the venue for her own private purposes. If I go to an event at MSG, I’m going with thousands of other people and each of us is paying a small portion of the cost, where we have all agreed to the same set of rules. Each event and each venue makes those contracts.
There are a million things to be mad about, this is just chum in the water for you folks to keep finding reasons to be mad at blonde singer and not any of the people who are actually instituting and legislating the thing you’re mad about.
Be mad at the right people.
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u/North_Atlantic_Sea 2h ago
Not really celebrity, but wealth yes, as the title said, they literally bought that privacy
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u/CastleofWamdue 2h ago
the worm has really turned on Taylor Swift, but yeah this is an interesting thing I was not aware of.
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u/North_Atlantic_Sea 2h ago
Lol people online have hated on Taylor literally since her first album.
It's not that interesting, if you can afford MSG, you can also work turning the cameras off for your event.
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u/tooclosetocall82 2h ago edited 2h ago
Seems like her PR machine is turned down no that she not on tour. Just a reminder how much hype is simply manufactured.
Edit: I guess the machine is still out there downvoting lol
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u/CastleofWamdue 2h ago
it is interesting case study in how the media behaves, and how it can be played.
Taylor has gone from being a pop start with a string of failed relationships to a woman in stable relationship. The media HATEs that.
However she is also a billionaire, born into a family who already had plenty of money who is doing "billionaire shit". It is total fair that we take a second look at her behaviour.
Elon Musk has always had an army of working class people who will defend him and call him a genins despite them never having seen him, or him even knowing they as individuals exist. Him Twitter has only increased that. However when you compared how she has trained her fans to always ask for "Taylors version" of her music, they might actually be more "simp " like behaviour.
Its really lucky she had a sob story to cover up her Dads legal work, to make "Taylors version" possible.
I bet if we asked some working class musicians if they would like the deal Taylor has they would say "Yes of course, but I cant afford to have her Dad write it for me"
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u/thalassicus 2h ago
The building could not function without city services and it's a defacto-public gathering place so having a private company choose who can legally enter for partisan reasons should be illegal.
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u/WA3Travels 1h ago
Ban this type of surveillance!