An Exploration of User and Bystander Attitudes About Mobile Live-Streaming Video

TL;DR

This study investigates how ordinary users and bystanders perceive and react to mobile live-streaming video in social settings, highlighting awareness gaps and privacy concerns.

Contribution

It provides ethnographic insights into bystander attitudes and legal awareness regarding mobile live-streaming in everyday social contexts.

Findings

Many bystanders are unaware when they are being live-streamed.

Participants desire stronger notifications and consent options.

There is a general lack of awareness about privacy implications.

Abstract

Thanks to mobile apps such as Periscope and Facebook Live, live-streaming video is having a moment again. It has not been clear, however, to what extent the current ubiquity of smartphones is impacting this technology's acceptance in everyday social situations and how mobile contexts or affordances will affect and be affected by shifts in social norms and policy debates regarding privacy, surveillance and intellectual property. This ethnographic-style research explores familiarity with and attitudes about mobile live-streaming video and related legal and ethical issues among a sample of "Middle America" participants at two typical outdoor social events: sports tailgating and a rooftop party. In situ observations of n=110 bystanders to the use of a smartphone, including interviews with n=20, revealed that many are not fully aware of when their image or speech is being live-streamed in a casual context and want stronger notifications of and ability to consent to such broadcasting.