Is Documenting Reality Safe Online

But safety is not a binary state. You can be safe legally while being in immense physical danger. You can be safe physically while destroying your social or professional life. To understand the safety of documenting reality, you have to break the risk into three distinct categories.

We live in the most recorded era in human history. There are over 45 million security cameras in the United States alone. Smartphones have turned every pedestrian into a potential cinematographer. Social media platforms are flooded with raw, unedited clips of police stops, workplace arguments, car accidents, and natural disasters. The assumption is intuitive: More cameras mean more accountability. More truth means more safety. is documenting reality safe

Documenting reality has toppled regimes (the Arab Spring), exonerated the innocent (the Chicago Police Laquan McDonald case), and exposed environmental crimes (oil spills filmed by drone). When a bystander films a hit-and-run or a nurse records a patient being neglected, they aren’t just "being nosy." They are creating evidence. They are, in a very real sense, performing a civic duty. But safety is not a binary state

In the summer of 2020, a freelance journalist in Portland, Oregon, learned a terrifying new rule of the trade. She wasn’t in a war zone. She wasn’t tracking cartels. She was filming a protest three blocks from her apartment, holding a DSLR with a press pass lanyard swinging from her neck. When a projectile struck her collarbone, she didn’t fall from the impact. She fell because the lanyard had snapped tight, strangling her for three seconds before breaking. Her camera, a $2,000 piece of plastic and glass, had almost become a noose. To understand the safety of documenting reality, you

Her crime? Documenting reality.

By J.S. Lane