Blue Seat Studios
3 HN recommenders · recommended in 7 months, 2015–2024
2:51 · 12M views · May 12, 2015
A three-minute animated video that explains sexual consent through the analogy of offering someone a cup of tea. It is based on a blog post by Emmeline May.
Used as the classic analogy for consent, applied to opt-out data collection and privacy practices.
8 comments from Hacker News
You know what else expresses lack of consent? Lack of consent. It’s very sad how this “you consent unless otherwise stated” ideology keep growing and growing. “We’re not spying on you, it’s just that you never expressed not wanting to be spied upon”. Here’s a very educational video on how giving consent works: this video
> as it's often said when it comes to other people attempting to cross your personal boundaries, "'No' is a complete answer". I love that, so important! Have people seen the Tea consent video? this video
This video does a pretty good job of explaining consent for those that don't think AA's description sounds like rape: this video (Tea Consent)
> most of modern Europe This is relatively recent, and has proven itself quite fragile. Democracies elect dictators. Dictators of powerful governments commit atrocities. There is no "don't elect dictators" solution. The only solution is to disempower the government. Also European nations are relatively small and relatively culturally homogenous. There is no functioning liberal democracy of a large multicultural state. > All societies impose involuntary obligations There is a vast difference between outlawing violent behaviour and mandating cooperation. The latter is indistinguishable from slavery. Free societies don't compel the cooperation of their citizens beyond the strict minimum necessary to maintain liberty itself. Even being conscripted into the army, which is slavery, can be justified if it is to defend against a foe who would destroy liberal society. It is however categorically not justified to mandate contribution to various insurance schemes and welfare programs. There is no picking and choosing here. I want my interactions with the state to maximize for consent [1]. I want the ability to out out. I am not owed medical treatment if I'm sick. I would like the ability to choose whether to incur an obligation or not. > freedom to do whatever the hell you want Yes! > no obligation to the liberty of others No. My rights to wave my fists around end where your nose begins. > freedom from hunger, freedom from fear, freedom from homelessness, freedom from pain These aren't
The difference between what you are doing here and the other public profiles you mention is consent. When a user creates a profile on Stack Overflow or Hacker News, they are consenting to share whatever data they give on that particular platform. When a user created a profile on Triplebyte, up until now, they were consenting to that data being used in a private profile for the purpose of connecting them with job opportunities, privately. Now, you've emailed all of your users on a Friday evening to say "by the way, if you don't opt-out in the next week, we will take this data that you gave to us under the assumption that it would be private, and make it public (and potentially searchable)." By saying "we'll do it unless you say no", you are not getting consent. If you're familiar with the tea analogy of consent, a la this video , this would be like you saying "well, other users (not necessarily every user, or you, the user in question right now) have had tea (not necessarily the same type of tea) from other platforms. This is just like that. So, if you don't say no to our tea in the next week, we're going to drop the tea on you. We hope you enjoy!" You are not just "launching public profiles for a product that has not had them in the past", you are launching public profiles and on them you are _sharing data that was given to you under the agreement that it was private_. You are using data that folks gave you in a very, very different way than for the purpose they gave it. Finally