Google Street View was launched in the UK last week and has been all over the news ever since. Sadly, it's been hogging column inches for all the wrong reasons. No, it hasn't been there because it's a genuinely useful and bizarrely interesting tool. It's not clogging up the front page of the Metro because people are applauding all the hard work and effort that has gone into making it possible, nor is it attracting comment after comment on internet 'Have Your Say' forums because of it's clever use of technology, bringing mapping storming into the 21st century.
No, it's making headlines because, it would seem, there are an awful lot of mumbling buffoons out there.
It's become apparent that vast swathes of the British public are somehow of the opinion that Google Street View is an infringement of their civil rights. A dastardly breach of their privacy! Another weapon in Big Brother's ever-growing arsenal against poor old Joe Public. A giant, map-shaped probe, ready to bum the bejesus out of all and sundry. A big special digi-paedo, waiting to pounce on innocent children like a rubbish, electric tiger. Or maybe it's the latest tool by which those terror folks will torment our brains.
Of course, if you've got the slightest hint of intelligence, you'll realise it's none of the above. In fact, it's just a load of photos of stuff that anyone could go and look at whenever they like at any time of day. Public stuff. You know, stuff that's in public. Stuff that anyone with fully-functioning eyes can look at as much as they like. Stuff that anyone can take a photo of whenever they like. And that's all it is; photos. It's not a live feed. It's not like CCTV. No, that kind of coverage would require millions of large spherical cameras to be permanently placed at five-metre intervals in the middle of every road in every major city in Britain. And last time I checked, that wasn't the case. They'd get in the way of cars and stuff.
So if you think Google Street View should be banned or shut down, you must logically also believe that human beings with eyes should also be banned, just in case they look at stuff. In fact, better safe than sorry, we'd better wipe out the animal kingdom too. They've got eyes and you never know what the shifty fuckers are thinking. They look at stuff all the time. They probably even bloody remember it too!!! Burn them all at the stake, then ban fire incase anyone took a photo of it. Then ban cameras. Sod, it, nuke the planet, there's no telling what people might have casually glanced at and not given a second thought to!
People have complained that images of themselves in compromising situations are available to the general public, even though their faces are blurred out and the only people who will recognise them are the friends and family who already know what a cretin they are. Here are some simple rules: if you don't want people to see you being sick in the street, don't be fucking sick in the street. If you don't want people to see you going into a sex shop, don't go into a fucking sex shop. That's what the internet's for! And if you don't want people to see the front, public-facing wall of your house, go and live in a fucking cave in the middle of nowhere.
And, most importantly, if you really must complain about something, make sure you at least have the tiniest shred of a clue what it actually is that you're moronically whining about. One guy actually complained that criminals would now be able to watch his house continuously, learn his patterns and know when he's out so they can rob his house. Quite apart from the fact that no-one gives a shit about his "patterns", apparently they can tell all that from a single photo taken almost a year ago. My contempt for that person can not be put into words. Instead, I'll leave you to make a deeply angry guttural noise of your choice.
I'm going to have a lie down...
LMFAO!!!!!
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