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I don't see how anyone's privacy was invaded here.
You have an extraordinarily limited notion of what privacy is.
Maybe a more modern notion? For better or worse society’s definition of privacy is definitely changing.
Society is not a person, it doesn't have a definition. It's just an abstract excuse used by actual individuals. If you want to propose, as a person, a particular notion of privacy, do so.
Yes, that's a problem. It's a question of scale, nowadays you can broadcast whatever you like to an audience of millions. Not that you should.

The law addresses questions of scale, though. If you call your ex you are a sad case. If you call her 100s of times a day you are a stalker and different rules apply.

>For better or worse society’s definition of privacy is definitely changing.

That's a matter of perception. You perceive it to be changing.

I don't know anyone who would willingly be on the receiving end of what this woman suffered. I do not see societies definition of privacy changing. I see a small group of needy people using using loopholes in the law to harm others in order to re-enforce their own ego.

The law is slowly catching up with the digital age. We'll outlaw all this stuff eventually. Unfortunately, most of this is falling to case law and case law is very reactive, so in general someone has to be badly harmed for each loophole to be closed. Still, we'll make it. In the mean time, it's important to enact community punishment on the trespassers.

The woman who did this did it because she is looking for employment. On the off chance that she comes asking to anyone on hacker news: If you care about privacy, do not hire her, and tell her it is because she treats others badly.

Maybe that would make it okay to do it to you, but even then it doesn't justify it being done to anyone but you.

  Alaska Airlines called what Blair did a "good deed" and offered her a free flight. T-Mobile offered Blair free Wi-Fi.
... and thus ends my patronage of both of these corporations.

T-mobile already pissed me off this week by dumping that 1700 megabyte Android 9 update on all of my Galaxy S7 over mobile data in the middle of the night without warning despite my account being set to disallow that, and reverting all security updates back to April in the process.

Wow, this is awful. :/ Of course, something like this is likely already rampant in less friendly environments (i.e., schools).
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If the airline was identified by the tweets, they should have stepped in, call the pilots/flight attendants to stop this madness.

It seems it would be easy for the victims to sue either the airline or the two perpetrators. Suing the airline might be safer to prevent doxxing by the 1M followers who somehow find this entertaining.

The fact that it went viral is unfortunate. The whole thing was a non-story (two people meet, wow) with big pink headlines and two giddy voyeurs. The only thing worth noting was the marketing aspect.
It didn't "go viral " it was shoved onto the scene by a very nosy self-promoter who piggybacked on the popularity. I'd say it's the same as illegally profiting off other people's experiences without their consent.
My greatest fear is becoming a meme or going viral for the wrong reasons. I feel terrible for this woman. She did not ask for her privacy to be invaded, or her personal life to go viral. In the future it would be best to avoid barging into peoples lives, printing their personal conversations and life for all to see, critique, and humiliate. That's what journalists are for.
> My greatest fear is becoming a meme or going viral for the wrong reasons

Generation Z in a nutshell.

Is such uninvited photography legal? A stranger takes your photograph without your permission or knowledge for multiple hours... sounds a lot like stalking.