STAR WAR'S KID: The Unintended Consequences of Virality
By Ryan Deng
INTRODUCTION
In November 2002, Ghyslain Raza , an overweight 14-year-old Canadian school boy, filmed himself at a high school studio for a class project. In the filmed video, Raza mimicked Darth Maul from the famous movie series Star Wars by waving around a golf ball retriever as his toy lightsaber, Raza mistakenly left the tape in the studio where another student discovered the tape and, without Raza’s permission, circulated the videotape around the school. In April 2003, another student uploaded the video to the internet with the title Jackass_starwars_funny.wmv and a third student posted the video on YouTube. In the coming months, the viral video of Raza amassed hundreds of millions of views on numerous platforms, and Raza became coined the "Star Wars Kid." Raza was the subject of intense cyberbullying, ridicule and harassment. Commenters said he should “kill himself” and made fun of his weight. Raza eventually dropped out of school and he became depressed and was entered into the psychiatric ward for children due to constant berating of his character.
Raza's parents eventually took legal action and sued the families of all three students initially involved in circulating the embarrassing video of their son. In April 2006, both parties agreed upon a confidential settlement, and the footage ultimately became viewed more than 900 million times! Numerous petitions arose in support of Raza to get roles in upcoming Star War Movie projects, with one petition receiving over 140,000 signatures for Episode III - Revenge of the Sith. In a more recent interview by Raza conducted by CBR news, Raza stated that to this day," there is an element of surrealism in all of this." Raza initially tried to distance himself from the video as much as possible, not wanting to be recognized and bullied any further. However, several years later Raza stepped forward and began to use his situation to help spread a message of anti-bullying on the internet and the effects that cyberbullying can have on individuals.
THE ISSUE OF A REASONABLE EXPECTATION OF PRIVACY
Many Americans mistakenly believe they have an absolute right to Privacy regarding their daily activities, the content of their conversations, and so forth. Yet, this misconstrued basis for which many Americans believe their Privacy exists is never once stated in the Constitution but instead is inferred from the 1st, 3rd, and 4th amendments within the Constitution. As such, typically, in a court of law to determine whether an invasion of one's Privacy has been made, a two-prong test is conducted to deduce whether, first, an individual shows "a subjective expectation that his activities or items would be private" and second, "that his subjective expectation of privacy is one in which society considers reasonable." The heightened ambiguity from these vague amendments also leads to loose attempts to define one's Privacy through "common law protections." Generally speaking, the provisions of which one can sue accordingly with these protections consist of five discrete rights of an individual that must never be violated. These five rights include intrusion upon seclusion, publicity that discloses private information, false-light advertising, appropriation of name or likeness, and theft of trade secrets.
LEGAL RAMIFICATIONS
With Raza's video, however, we find that first, with the reasonable expectation of Privacy, Raza initially did have an expectation, at just 14 years old, that a video he filmed with no one else present would remain private from the public. However, because he utilized camera equipment at the high school studio and left the camera at the studio individual could have accessed the footage. Given Raza's negligence and his poor care of the footage and the frequency at which that camera is used by others, it cannot be argued that he maintained an expectation of privacy in the videotape. Based solely on this two-pronged test, the legal consensus is that while the situation could be better for Raza, it should not be addressed legally in court and has no constitutional basis. However, there may be some applicable "common law protections" for Raza. Because Raza was harassed and bullied as a result of the dissemination of the video without his consent, those protections could serve as a benchmark for Raza to sue for damages. It would depend on the common law of Canada and whether it is similar to the law in the U.S.
PUNISHMENT BY THE SCHOOL?
As for punishment for those who spread the videos themselves, or engaged in any cyberbullying, any disciplinary action enforced by the school would revolve around the school's individual policy. However, due to the sheer volume of cyberbullying on the interconnected web we frequently use, some schools have shifted from prevention to treatment. Offering activities in school and optimistic character reinforcement in assemblies, these intervention programs serve as guidance for future students who may find themselves in situations such as Raza to educate them on the consequences of cyberbullying and how to seek resources for help.
MY OPINION
The sad truth of the Star Wars Kid saga is that it is all too common in the Internet Age. Time and time again embarrassing videos/pictures from people’s pasts resurface, or videos/pictures that were not meant to be seen by the public. In this evolving age of technology and rapid publication of videos we should center our conversation on the invasion of privacy based on ethics. The ability of a user to publish a video should not be bound by legal matters but rather by an unofficial rule that allows those in videos, such as Raza, to express their concern and demonstrate their request to remove the video from the internet. The European Union, with its “right to be forgotten” allows this to happen. In the future, I hope for society to find the proper moral and ethical obligations when sharing videos, such as Raza's, to respect those included in videos and promote and foster a safer and more friendly online environment. Otherwise, we all risk becoming the next Star Wars Kid.
Sources:
River, Julie. “Star Wars Kid Opens up about Harassment Sparked by Viral 2000s Video.” CBR, 2 Apr. 2022, www.cbr.com/star-wars-kid-harassment-from-viral-2000s-video/. Accessed 18 Jan. 2023.
Taylor, Chris. “Reconsidering “Star Wars Kid,” the Early Internet’s Meanest Moment.” Mashable, 28 Oct. 2020, mashable.com/article/star-wars-kid-cyberbullying.
Report, Wired News. “Star Wars Kid Files Lawsuit.” Wired, www.wired.com/2003/07/star-wars-kid-files-lawsuit/#:~:text=Star%20Wars%20Kid%20Files%20Lawsuit%20The%20parents%20of. Accessed 18 Jan. 2023.
ASO staff writers. “Addressing Cyberbullying in School: Prevention and Victim Support.” AccreditedSchoolsOnline.org, AccreditedSchoolsOnline.org, 21 Feb. 2019, www.accreditedschoolsonline.org/resources/cyberbullying-prevention-and-support/.
Wolford, Ben. “Everything You Need to Know about the “Right to Be Forgotten” - GDPR.eu.” GDPR.eu, 5 Nov. 2018, gdpr.eu/right-to-be-forgotten/.
“Bullying and Cyberbullying | SchoolSafety.gov.” Www.schoolsafety.gov, www.schoolsafety.gov/bullying-and-cyberbullying.
I agree with Ryan that Raza does not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in this case, sad as it was. As Ryan noted, Raza used public school property to film the video in a school owned studio. If he had filmed it using a camera he owned in his own home, then he would have a reasonable expectation of privacy. This of course is using American privacy laws, but this case would have been under Canadian laws which we have not discussed in class.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I would argue that the students who posted the video should be held accountable by the school for cyberbullying. They posted the video without Raza's consent using school property. The fact that the students titled the video "Jackass_starwars_funny.wmv" shows that the intent was always to ridicule and humiliate Raza. If the school was able to identify the students who uploaded the video, they should be punished for bullying and harassment. The punishment would of course depend on what the rules are in that particular school and likely are different in Canada than here in the US.
Overall, Ryan is correct that Raza did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in this case due to using school property. I would still argue that even if no legal action could be taken, disciplinary action should still have been taken against the students who uploaded the video by the school according to their cyberbullying rules.
What happened to Raza was unfortunate, but whats interesting is that at this point even if the original YouTube videos were taken down, there are so many references to "the star wars kid" within other forms of media, including movies and television, that at this point it would be impossible to remove them all. Even as late as 2016, Arrested Development included a reference to one of their earlier seasons, which itself was a star wars kid reference. This web of shows referencing shows referencing videos referencing movies really shows the cyclical nature of both "meme culture" and the internet. I'm sure we can think of countless other examples of people who have been immortalized against their will due to images or videos of their likeness being posted, sometimes against their will.
ReplyDeleteInteresting story! It definitely sucks how ruthless kids and people on the Internet can be. And like Jake said, though a right to be forgotten could help, once the video becomes so widespread, it's hard to truly get the Internet to forget.
ReplyDeleteI do have a question though. Raza may not have had a reasonable expectation of privacy, but doesn't that only matter for government surveillance? So even if Raza had a reasonable expectation of privacy, they wouldn't have been able to sue based off of the Fourth Amendment because it isn't the government acquiring the video off of the camera, correct?
Though as was mentioned before, this is Canada, so I do also wonder how different Canada's laws are and how they would handle this situation.
Overall, I think schools should take action over situations like this, and parents should keep their kids in check. Obviously, it can be difficult if the school or the parents are not aware of the situation, but this is why schools should do their best to allow safe environments for kids to report bullying.
This is super interesting and relevant to the privacy problems of technology nowadays, because as the legal decision shows, it's so hard to actually hold people accountable depending on these technical circumstances. The situation here reminds me of the danger of the subtle ways that we "consent," even without the obvious check mark of endless Terms & Conditions. By using public property or just being careless, it's scary to see that we can end up waiving our privacy rights without realizing.
ReplyDeleteAnd as mentioned, I think virality is a really crazy phenomenon that makes these digital privacy matters so much harder to deal with. So many people can go viral on TikTok, even as a third party who isn't the account user (background people, just someone in public, being talked about), and this, like the Star Wars scenario, can have an extremely negative impact. Comments, threats, and general cyberbullying is often going to show up with any viral video, and to be subject to that when you weren't even the one consenting to post the video is a really hard situation to deal with. Like what happened with Raza, I think that the emotional impact and the long lasting effects of virality is really damaging, and most times, winning a lawsuit isn't even worth what it ends up doing to someone's life and mental health.
Although the story and its consequences are tragic, the Star Wars Kid is a phenomenon that I think will never go away. With the current technology, internet anonymity, and widespread usage of social media, it would be impossible to create a legal protection against virality. There would simply be too many moving parts to create any protection for ignorant or negligent persons from going viral for what embarrassing moments they spread online. The only protection against a situation as such is education and awareness. Ironically, the best prevention of this scenario is the further dissemination of it and the awareness of its consequences. At the moment, there are countless other Star Wars Kids being used as an online laughing stock, for example Britt Barbie, who's infamous for her "Period Uhh Period Ahh" song. When googling her name, the first thing prompted by Google under 'People Also Ask' is "Does Britt Barbie have down syndrome?" Although Raza did not consent to the video being shared, he had no reasonable expectation of privacy, and the same is true today - most posters on TikTok do not expect virality, only for a select audience, perhaps friends or family, to see their videos, which then the algorithm may place on a wider audience's feed, without the expressed consent of the poster. At best, this story should continued to be spread to alert others and inform them of the consequences of their actions, and that dancing like no one is watching doesn't actually mean that no one is watching.
ReplyDeleteWhen I first saw this video I had no idea that this was published without Raza's permission. The topic is very interesting, especially considering the fact the Raza used school equipment to record the video. It is sad that he left the camera and forgot to take it with him or delete the video. Raza also did not have expectations of privacy because he had school equipment that was readily available to other students and therefore he could not do anything about it being posted. I agree with Ryan that we do live in an age where people would post embarrassing stuff on the internet without the people being recorded being told they will be on the internet. This is a common thing because people find this type of entertainment to be amazing and funny, but it is sad especially because we don't know what happens to the people in real life after these videos. I hope one day we will be able to not have these types of videos being posted.
ReplyDeleteRaza's story brings to light an issue that is becoming more and more prevalent in the age of social media. Anything, and anyone has the potential to go viral, and once that has happened, it is very difficult, if not impossible to take back. Even if it had been ruled that the Star War's Kid video was a violation of privacy and had to be taken down, it was likely too late - it had already been viewed millions of times, and people had already formed their impressions of Raza from it. Today, I think this is even more of a widespread problem because kids don't have to steal footage off a video camera in order to cyberbully their peers when they all have high quality camera's in their pockets. It is also harder to track a video back to its source when a single video can be shared, screen recorded, edited and reposted rapidly. By the time the subject of a video sees that it is posted, it will likely have been taken wildly out of context and have the original source removed. Users of social media see hundreds of photos and videos and likely don't stop to consider whether the person they are looking at wanted it to spread quite so far, or whether they ever consented to be viewed in the first place.
ReplyDeleteAnother aspect of this case that I find interesting, is the idea that Raza gave away any reasonable expectation of privacy he had by using the school property and not deleting the video immediately. While in retrospect, it makes sense that he couldn't have expected privacy when the video was easily accessible to other students, I doubt Raza even thought about this at the time. He was making a video for a class project, and he probably never would have expected it to be seen outside of that class. How many of us have made potentially embarrassing videos for a class? Would we expect to see these videos circulating on the web? The reality is that a lot of us are constantly voiding our right to privacy because we share things in public and expect the common decency of not having that information spread beyond the intended audience and context. The way privacy protections work in the US though, means that anything that was made public, cannot be taken back. I think today's kids are especially vulnerable to this. They have grown up in a world where it is normal to be online and where there is suddenly a culture where everyone posts their whole lives for everyone else to see. I am shocked when I see someone posting personal information and endless details of their lives all where anyone could take advantage, and I feel like I'm only seeing it more often.
The story behind "the star wars kid" is extremely interesting. While Raza definitively had no reasonable expectation of privacy due to using school property, what was supposed to be done about the cyberbullying? It was intresting to read this story in 2023 with cyberbullying being rampant on social media platforms such as Tik Tok and Twitter. It is obvious that the school should have disciplined the students responsible for uploading the video to YouTube, however, the damage would have already been done. A punishment from the school is a slap on the wrist compared to the humiliation "the star war's kid" had to face. Rather than focus on combating cyberbullying, which often times annonymous or extremely wide spread, students as young as Raza should be taught how to protect their privacy. The only way to avoid situations such as "the stars wars kid" is to completely avoid creating the video. With the internet becoming essential and acceptable at younger ages, students need to understand that vulnerable videos and photographs should be created on personal equipment in a personal enviornment.
ReplyDeleteI find it interesting how easy it was for other students to access the footage on a school camera that was being used for a school project. While Raza didn't really have a reasonable expectation of privacy while using the school's equipment and studio, he should have some more security in how that footage can be accessed. I took a film class in high school and after every day of filming we turned the camera into the teacher and all footage would immediately be placed in a folder that he had access to and could put on a flash drive for us to edit, but otherwise the footage was all deleted immediately. Obviously this could be due to issues like Raza experienced, but it's really not that hard to protect your students work and their privacy. In any case, Raza should have been a little more careful with the footage to ensure his own privacy, and the only real way to prevent this from happening is to keep your own "embarrassing" footage private, though everyone has a different limit of what's embarrassing or not.
ReplyDeleteI looked up the video to see for myself and when reading the comments, a lot (if not all) of the newer comments were talking about how "legendary" he is and how fun he seems. It's cool to see that this video is no longer something shameful for him and instead it's something that he uses to teach about kindness and the impacts of bullying. Times are changing, and I think that the reception of this video is just one of many examples of that.
(Chloe Hagan)
ReplyDeleteRyan’s analysis of Raza was very interesting and justified in my opinion. Although I sympathize with Raza, as I have had videos being posted publicly without my explicit consent before, I don’t think he took enough care with the footage and school-owned to expect privacy in this situation. If somebody had went into his phone and received the footage in a more calculated and malicious way, then I think he would have a reasonable right to privacy argument. However, he did not delete the footage and did not let others using the camera know to not post the footage, meaning he lost access to the right to privacy for that video. I also agree that this should introduce the idea of ethics into the privacy discussion, and how even though he technically gave up his right to privacy, it was still highly unethical/immoral to post that video without his consent. This case reminds me of current day events, where kids and young adults are filming more and more risky and “embarrassing” videos and posting them to TikTok now. If somebody posted a tiktok for friends only (people that you follow back and follow you) and one of them posted the video and it went viral, would there be any ramifications legally? Raza’s videos and situation took place in the growth of YouTube and online video in the early 2000s. Times have changed, and I’m interested to learn more if the “right to be forgotten” will be applied to the new forms of social media like TikTok and Instagram reels.