Every Male Drone Pilot Is A Pedophile!
It is just idiotic paranoia and illogic driven from both the helicopter parenting of children and the idea that to be male is to be criminal that people decide that there's something pervy going on any time a man is near, looking at, or using a camera around children who are not his own.
This sort of ugly thinking gets passed on to one's kids.
Here's an example of it -- a man flying a drone who is accused of taking video of girls playing soccer...which he is not.
Michael Archambault posts at Petapixel:
Jonathan Hair is a drone pilot and aerial photographer from Detroit, Michigan, who recently ran into a confrontation while flying his drone at a public field. Hair, who has been working with radio-controlled planes, helicopters, and multi-rotor aircraft for the last twenty years, was confronted by a man who suspected that Hair was recording a girl's soccer game, suggesting that he was a pedophile. Hair stood his ground, responding in a professional manner and capturing the entire confrontation in the 5-minute video above.
via @TimCushing
I agree that with "paranoia and illogic" but newly received wisdom is that humans' "danger threshold" is set to produce false positives which may explain the accoster's behavior. Or maybe he's belligerent or showing off.
In a sister video, cops are politely hassling a drone driver because "park policy" prohibits them as a potential safety hazard. They could not produce any evidence of the existence of the rule they were enforcing. I like the idea of police as advocates for public safety, but that brings its own set of challenges: they have to enforce broad and vague standards created to prevent conflict among people with disparate agendas, like parents vs. suspected pedophiles and parkgoers vs. people who might drop drones on their heads.
DaveG at September 7, 2015 10:14 AM
"he ends his video by saying that others should not “feed the drone paranoia. Model aircraft are a hobby, not a spy device.”
And even if it were a spy device, you have no expectation of privacy in a public place.
Walking down a public city sidewalk you are caught on security cameras a least a dozen times. When will nitwits like this father realize that?
My guess is. *never*.
This dad is a bully, and uses bullying tactics.
Isab at September 7, 2015 10:23 AM
Call the cops on that dad. His behavior is unacceptable. Issue a complaint. Report him for harassment.
Ben at September 7, 2015 10:43 AM
I'd probably be a terrible father. I'd drag my daughter over to the drone pilot and ask him to give her a birds eye view tour of the park. Then again, I'd want my daughter to be an aerospace engineer, so I'm a bit weird.
Frog at September 7, 2015 11:22 AM
Yes, to be male means that you are automatically suspected of being a perv. That's one thing the "women's movement" has given our culture; men=bad.
Of course, one could also say the dad thought that is what the guy is doing with the drone because maybe that is what the dad wanted to be doing?!
This reminds me of a similar video (which actually comes up at the end of this one) in which a woman assaults a guy because he is flying his drone over a seaside and she assumes that he is spying on women at the beach.
charles at September 7, 2015 2:04 PM
Shocking, I know, but I have to agree with Isab. Even he was video recording the girls' soccer practice, guess what? He has a right to. They're in a public place and you have no expectation of privacy.
And even if he wanted to video record the girls' soccer practice, that's no reason to assume he's a perv either. It would be no different if he sat down on the bleachers with a video camera (probably like a dozen other parents). Maybe he likes to watch children playing sports. Personally, I'm always glad to see kids playing sports and playing outside, as opposed to the agoraphobic kids we're raising now, who play video games all day and never leave the house.
Patrick at September 7, 2015 6:03 PM
Yes, to be male means that you are automatically suspected of being a perv. That's one thing the "women's movement" has given our culture; men=bad.
Sorry; this one is on parents, a significant number of which are convinced the world is singularly focused on diddling their kids.
Kevin at September 7, 2015 7:12 PM
You can't deny it's ties to feminism Kevin. Yes helicopter parents are part of it too, but feminism has to pay child support on that bastard love child.
Ben at September 8, 2015 5:12 AM
Here's the video you're referring to, Charles.
Patrick at September 8, 2015 8:22 AM
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