18 comments

  • dghlsakjg 6 hours ago

    > Nobody could have realised that camera traps put in the Indian forest to monitor mammals actually have a profoundly negative impact on the mental health of local women who use these spaces.

    Most women could have predicted that spycams in a park, run by a government in a country with known issues around women’s rights, would lead to issues.

    Even governments with incredibly strict rules and indelible audit trails struggle with men in government using their access to data to stalk women. India is not a country known for these things.

    • ChrisMarshallNY 6 hours ago

      Here in NY, we had a [very short-term] governor, who used to be the Attorney General, get hoist by his own petard.

      While AG, he put in place, a monitoring regimen, that caught him, as Guv, using state funds to buy hookers and whatnot.

      For all I know, he might have gotten away with it, if he hadn’t been using state funds.

      It kinda ripped the lid off a bunch of fairly misogynistic attitudes, though. He didn’t last long, after that.

      • Spooky23 4 hours ago

        Nah. A compliance officer at his bank filed a SAR because he was structuring wire transfers to bypass his reporting requirement. He wasn’t using state funds.

        The Feds started poking around, and voilà. The Southern District of NY US Attorney was a big game hunter for politicians, so his goose was cooked.

        Ironically, the lieutenant governor who replaced him came out swinging, disclosing that he did inhale, regularly had sex outside of his marriage, did cocaine and various other things. Lol.

        • Semaphor 2 hours ago

          > Ironically, the lieutenant governor who replaced him came out swinging, disclosing that he did inhale, regularly had sex outside of his marriage, did cocaine and various other things. Lol.

          Hah, how did he do?

          • fsckboy 2 hours ago

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliot_Spitzer_prostitution_sca...

            succeeded as governor by David Paterson, a blind man... nothing says a blind governor can't embezzle funds to spend on prostitutes, but perhaps it's less common? wikip: Paterson launched a campaign for a full term as governor in the 2010 New York gubernatorial election, but he announced on February 26, 2010, that he would bow out of the race. During the final year of his administration, Paterson faced allegations of soliciting improper gifts and making false statements; he was eventually fined in excess of $62,000 for accepting free New York Yankees tickets. He was not charged with perjury.

            He was succeeded as governor by

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Cuomo_sexual_harassment...

      • yieldcrv 4 hours ago

        Consuming sex work isn’t misogynistic, by definition as it doesnt involve contempt or hate of women, sex workers have a voice too and don’t want to be marginalized by that assumption or dilution of that word

        Just a view I see lacking and underrepresented in tech spaces

        But if there are other things you’re referring to with that governor then definitely mention those, separately

  • nomilk 3 hours ago

    Seems a lot of modern tech is (ab)used for the purpose of perving. I recently visited a gym which seemed very social media oriented (not dissimilar to most gyms tbh), but as days went by I gathered the impression something weird was going on. I ended up suspecting (but having absolutely no evidence) that the owner or staff was using the cameras to spy on members. Further oddities exist in the reviews for the place, which includes staff walking into the change rooms (of the opposite sex) with naked people there.

    That's a really long/specific way of saying: wildlife cameras spying on Indian women is an instance of a more general problem.

    I feel like plausible deniability (e.g. security/monitoring) is so easy that discovering and alleging wrong-doing would be met with little more than shrugging of shoulders.

    • fsckboy 2 hours ago

      >I feel like plausible deniability...is so easy that discovering and alleging wrong-doing would be met with little more than shrugging of shoulders.

      it was not met with shrugs

      FTA: Young men appointed as temporary forest workers shared the photo on local Whatsapp and Facebook groups to "shame the woman," Simlai said. "We broke and set fire to every camera trap we could find after the daughter of our village was humiliated in such a brazen way," one local told the researchers.

      • nomilk an hour ago

        > it was not met with shrugs

        That's good news in this instance but not in the case of cameras in gyms and many other cases, unfortunately.

  • keithnz 5 hours ago

    another article with some other details https://www.enca.com/opinion/wildlife-monitoring-tech-used-h...

    seems like they developed a set of principles a while back https://wildlabs.net/sites/default/files/principles_for_the_...

    But my guess is without strict enforcement of the rules with consequences this will carry on.

    • gnabgib 5 hours ago

      That article references this University of Cambridge study.

  • fsckboy 2 hours ago

    they should put the women in charge of the cameras and wildlife monitoring

  • yieldcrv 3 hours ago

    > camera traps put in the Indian forest to monitor mammals

    so it’s working

    okay the less cynical response is that this is really highlighting why women are seeking refuge in the forest, and “choosing the tiger” because the men at home are more predictably dangerous. A localized version of phrase “choosing the bear”

    • hackernewds an hour ago

      they are not just escaping from the men at home. they're actively having illicit affairs away from their men at home, in the privacy of the forest..

  • thaumasiotes 6 hours ago

    Perhaps there's an inherent conflict between using the forest as a source of resources for the nearby village, and using it as a storage space for tigers.

    • nine_k 5 hours ago

      That same forest without the cameras didn't exhibit that particular kind of conflict. I suppose the problem is in behavior of particular humans here, not of tigers, the forest, or even the cameras.

    • notRobot 6 hours ago

      The forest is for all to use and not exploit

  • RobotToaster 39 minutes ago

    > they feel watched and inhibited by camera traps, so talk and sing much more quietly.

    Why would you stop singing loudly because of cameras?

    Even if their singing is bad, they're just inflicting it on someone who they don't like?