Woman Catches "Creepy Old Man" Taking Pics of Her at the Beach, Forces Him to Delete Them
Updated May 24 2023, 9:27 a.m. ET
There are plenty of things you can legally do that just aren't morally right. Like being a tenant and abusing local laws to make an otherwise chill landlord's life a living hell, or filing one of the millions of frivolous lawsuits that are brought to court in the US every single year. And while the more pedantic of us would sit back and say, "nyahh well legally you're allowed to do that" do you really want to be that person? Who dreams that the love of their life is essentially a punch-able '80s movie villain?
This legality vs morality/common sense argument can be applied to taking photographs of people in public places. If you're walking out in public and hanging out with your friends, people have every right, legally to record you, snap photos of you, and upload all of that to the internet, showing your face and your undistorted voice for the entire world to see.
So that means if you're at the beach with your friends and some perv wants to come by and snap photos of you, they legally can. You could probably report him to the authorities because no beach wants some creep ambling around taking pictures of folks and making families feel uncomfortable.
Or you could do what this TikToker did and put the guy on blast and force him to delete the pictures off of his phone.
In a clip uploaded by @bare_naked, a young woman can be seen accosting an old man and scrolling through his phone while forcing him to remove the pictures on it.
The caption seems to indicate that the man feigned ignorance about the nature of his iPhone's camera roll application, as the TikToker in question writes: "iDk WhAt ReCeNt DeLeTeD iS."
The user also hashtagged #clearwater, #tampa, and #florida in the video's caption, indicating that this occurred while her and her friends were having a swell old time at the beach when they noticed an old dude was snapping photos of them without their consent.
While he legally didn't do anything wrong from a technical standpoint, many TikTokers applauded the young woman for standing up for herself and confronting the man for his behavior.
A user by the name of Dylan Launiere wrote: "Yikes imagine thinking is cool to creep on ppl at the beach š¬š¬š¬ pick the bugs outta ur teeth and be better boys."
However it seemed that there were many folks who argued that the man was well within his rights to take those pictures, something that OP disagreed with in the comments section: "Everyone in these comments defending him, yāall are on something. Would be different if it was your daughter or nieceā¦"
Still, there were users who said that she had no legal ground to make him delete the photos: "It might be wrong for him to take those pics but heās allowed under the law and legally u canāt force him to delete the pics."
What do you think? Is this an instance where common sense matters more than technical legality?