Online Influencers Are Recording Interactions With Unknowing Amish People Using Camera Glasses — And Racking Up Millions Of Views
A pair of online influencers have been scoring a huge amount of online attention – in the millions of views – thanks to videos surreptitiously recording their conversations and interactions with Amish people.
The videos are recorded using camera technology built into Meta AI glasses, typically at food stand businesses in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and related markets.
But the influencers are now getting attention they might not want – in the form of public scrutiny coming from media reporting – and possibly even from the Lancaster County DA’s office.
A report out today by Dan Nephin at the Lancaster Watchdog of Lancaster Online lays out the story:
Twice now, the Watchdog has been contacted by readers concerned about a social media influencer known as “Laura in Amish Country,” who appears to surreptitiously record interactions with the Amish for her online posts.
A similar content creator, “Steven in Amish Country,” posts similar encounters; the two are apparently a couple.
The videos are surreptitiously taken by someone wearing camera-equipped eyeglasses running software made by Meta, the company that owns Facebook.
The technology is available on Ray-Ban and Oakley frames; on Tuesday, Meta announced it would offer its own designs starting at $299.
Local residents who brought this to the paper’s attention include Nick Jabbour, who also reached out to the DA’s office:
Readers who contacted the Watchdog used words like “exploitation” and “illegal” to describe what the influencers are doing. Nick Jabbour, 42, a Lancaster Township businessman, is one of them.
Jabbour was so troubled by the posts that he wrote a detailed email to Lancaster County District Attorney Heather Adams pointing out what he sees as the illegality of recording without consent and asking for an investigation.
“I just started to see how (the Amish subjects) were being baited into conversations,” Jabbour said Tuesday. “It wasn’t just patronizing their establishments or what have you. (It was) ‘What’s your favorite thing? Have you ever heard of Fetty Wap? Do you know about Bad Bunny?’ It’s ‘What’s your favorite …? What’s the most popular… ?’ And these people are just conducting their business.”
Laura in Amish Country and Steven in Amish Country were both contacted by the Watchdog. Laura replied, Steven did not. Here’s a bit of the response from Laura:
“My content really doesn’t circle around the Amish anymore,” Flynn said, adding an assertion that she wasn’t trying to exploit anyone.
Asked if she gets permission from the people she features in her posts, Flynn said, “It really depends. It’s on a case-by-case basis.”
Flynn said she and her boyfriend, Steven, moved to Lancaster County a couple of years ago from Long Island, New York. She declined to specify where in the county she lives, and she did not provide Steven’s last name.
It should also be noted that the video content is not exclusively of Amish people (I have seen Mennonite people, and non-Amish people as well), though it seems to make up a sizable chunk or even a majority of the videos.
Does this actually help the Amish businesses?
Laura couches the videos as a way of promoting Amish businesses: “I have gotten a lot of Amish contacting me for advertising purposes,” she says.
I think there is some merit to that idea. Beyond Amish people paying her to advertise directly, some of the businesses featured may in fact see an increase in business due to these videos – some have hit several million views, or in some cases, a lot more than that.
But I’m skeptical that promoting Amish business is the main point of the videos. If it does help them, it doesn’t change the fact that the people involved simply don’t know their face-to-face personal interaction is being recorded the whole time these people are in their stores.
Some would likely be okay with it, but some would probably decline if asked.
Crude Comments
One negative upshot of these videos: crude commentary about the unknowingly-recorded Amish subjects. Some of the comment sections of these videos have seen, let’s just say, unsavory comments posted by viewers – some of them mocking the Amish people featured in the hidden-camera recordings.
By my admittedly cursory look through the comment sections at YouTube, it seems the majority are not of that nature, however. And it should be pointed out that bad comments posted by viewers are not directly on the creators.
It’s something that’s going to happen to a degree when a video featuring the Amish gains enough reach online. However, the creators of such videos do have responsibility for exposing their subjects to such comments.
YouTube’s internal comment system I’ve found tends to bury the worse ones, but not in all cases. A creator can also delete offensive comments.
I should emphasize that’s YouTube; I can’t speak about comments on the other short-form video platforms like TikTok and Instagram.
And one note on a term I used above: I’m calling this “hidden-camera” because, even though the glasses have a light that comes on (as both Laura Flynn and DA Adams point out), indicating that recording is happening, how many Amish people are even aware of that? And is that sufficient to let someone know their conversation is being taped?
I myself wasn’t even aware that Meta glasses were “a thing” until about a month or two ago, and I’m not Amish, but a fairly plugged-in English person.
Is this legal?
Lancaster County District Attorney Heather Adams also had something to say on the legality question. Not specifically about these two influencers, but about using camera glasses for such recordings in general:
The Watchdog asked Adams, the district attorney, about issues related to Meta glasses, not specifically about Laura and Steve in Amish Country.
She said camera-equipped glasses are a recent technology that hasn’t been addressed in any existing Pennsylvania case law.
Under the state’s Wiretap Act, Adams said via email, “it is illegal to record a conversation where one has an expectation that the communication will not be recorded and that expectation is justifiable under the circumstances. Part of any discussion where there is an expectation that a communication will not be recorded is a discussion of the expectation of privacy in the conversation.”
Adams said courts “declined to extend the heightened expectation of privacy one has in a home to a business noting that a proprietor may typically have interactions with strangers and third parties. While doing so, there would seem to be no expectation that a customer would keep such general inquiries about the business private, especially in a public setting where others are present.”
So based on that response – making a distinction between privacy in one’s home vs. in one’s place of business – it doesn’t sound like this type of recording within businesses is illegal.
Beyond legality, there are, of course, also the ethical questions. As one viewer cited in the Watchdog article says, “They can’t even defend themselves. Legal doesn’t make it ethically acceptable.”
The Watchdog also spoke with David Merli, an associate professor of philosophy at Franklin & Marshall College, whose comments included this:
“If the answer is: They’d be upset by having their conversation used this way, it’s a good indicator that they’re being disrespected because you’re taking their consent out of the equation”
The Amish as a whole, in my view, have become a good bit more comfortable around the camera over the past two decades, as recording tech has proliferated in society. But recording someone’s face-to-face discussion without them even knowing it is a different category than, say, distance photography.
Having a look at Laura in Amish Country’s YouTube channel, she seems to in fact be pivoting away from creating Amish-focused videos. Steven in Amish Country’s YouTube channel still has primarily Amish-focused content, with the latest video posted six days ago.
It remains to be seen if they continue with videos of unknowing Amish people after starting to get this sort of public attention.
Read More:
- Amish Instagram Influencer “Melanskia” Isn’t Real — But 300,000 People Follow Her Health Advice
- 1-800-CHATGPT: How Some Amish Are Using A.I.
- Amish & Social Media: Youth On Instagram; Women Using It For Business
Seems inappropriate.
Could be a first amendment issue, although this has to do with private religious people and not the government. Technology pushes the law. Maybe a sign that says no photography would help, then it may be a trespass if they keep recording.
This could even be religious discrimination or a hate incident, where this person knows the Amish are not open to being recorded or to worldly things, and deliberately provokes them with both.
Really poor behavior from these New York people.
Amish aren't click bait.
I personally know some of these people/businesses she has illegally recorded, and they are not happy. Some of them are underage. I spoke with one of the girls mom’s on Friday and was shocked when she told me that her son told her that under no circumstances should his younger sister ever read the comments. Some of these people are my personal friends that I’ve driven to work, school and many other places. It’s sad to see them exploited like this.