‘Hey girl!’ Web fueling random abuse on streets
Print Edition
“Hi, girl, take a street shot?” “What a good figure!” Nowadays, more and more livestreams and short videos appear on online platforms in which streamers accost passers-by on the street, and many people become the subjects of the videos without knowing it.
Streamers usually choose bustling commercial areas or tourist attractions to chase passersby, strike up conversations, and even make various requests.
In one case in Beijing, a streamer trailed behind passersby after being rejected, filming and commenting on the appearance and clothing of the women.
In another case, a streamer used “blind dating for netizens” as a gimmick and traveled all over the country to chat with women. Within the first 40 minutes of the live broadcast, the streamer had approached seven or eight girls.
Knowing they were underage, one streamer still made excessive requests, asking for physical contact.
After the chaos in outdoor live streaming was exposed by China Central Television, the problem caught the attention of the public.
Legal experts said that verbal and physical harassment of strangers on the streets, follow-ups or candid shots, and uploading videos without permission, may be illegal. Livestreamers may violate rights such as privacy and reputational rights. Some behavior may even constitute sexual harassment.
If people find that they have been secretly photographed or followed, they can protect their rights.
Zhu Wei, vice director of the Communication Law Research Center at the China University of Political Science and Law, said harassing people in public violates the Public Security Penalty Law.
“If harassment is excessive, you should immediately report it to the police,” Zhu said.
In recent years, cases and disputes have arisen about streamers secretly filming, accosting, and harassing passersby.
In July 2019, a female streamer in Hefei, in eastern Anhui Province, tried to attract fans by harassing passersby. She was eventually detained by police for eight days for provoking trouble.
In September 2020, a male online streamer broadcast on the street during which he asked multiple women for kisses, and even followed a drunk woman. After his behavior was reported by netizens, the livestreaming platform banned his account permanently and was added to the blacklist of Internet streamers.
Various platforms have regulations on the management of outdoor live broadcast behavior in which streamers are prohibited from verbal and physical harassment of passersby. But to draw traffic, some streamers ignore them. And some livestreaming platforms even have a separate category for “outdoor accosting,” and keywords such as “hitting on girls on the streets” will pop up in searches.
The China Association of Performing Arts says the number of online livestreaming service users hit 617 million in 2020, — 62.4 percent of Internet users.
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