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Privacy, consent, and the court of public opinion
Two tensions recur in such visual narratives: the public’s right to know versus an individual’s right to privacy; and the political relevance of a person’s private characteristics versus their public acts. When images of young people are circulated alongside calls for punishment, the balance tips toward punitive publicity. Societies must decide when it is acceptable to make private individuals into public exemplars—and when doing so is an abuse of media power. A healthy civic practice would require a stricter threshold for circulating images of minors or young adults as objects of political retribution.
