Madison Square Garden compiled a list of activists against facial recognition
cdrnsf
298 points
87 comments
June 23, 2026
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Discussion Highlights (11 comments)
xrd
Please watch/listen to the Pablo Torre podcast about this one for additional context: https://www.pablo.show/p/inside-james-dolans-deep-state?utm_... If you don't know, Pablo recently won a Pulitzer for his reporting on Steve Balmer's deal with Aspiration. If you listened only to mainstream media, you would think "Poor Steve, he was duped!" But, Pablo's reporting might change your opinion on that one. The incredible volume of high quality, well researched shows are so refreshing as an antidote to Joe Rogan and Theo Vaughn, who seem to come into every interview with just the right amount of ignorance to let every guest spew whatever propaganda they want. Pablo never lets that happen.
nla
In NYC, you can trespass anyone from a private business at any time and for no reason at all. NY Penal Law § 140.00 says a person in premises open to the public is there with license/privilege unless they defy a lawful order not to enter or remain, personally communicated by the owner or another authorized person. So, in plain English: “You have to leave. You are not allowed back.” The owner does not need to say: “You have to leave because…” There was a ton of hoopla around this when Radio City and MSG trespassed lawyers that were suing the company and venues. Everyone was up in arms and nothing happened.
emsign
List of Honor. I'm grateful these brave people exist.
afavour
Debating this specific dossier ignores the larger issue, IMO: > MSG has deployed facial recognition technology since 2018 to identify people entering the venue. MSG’s facial recognition systems have been used to block entry to the stadium for all sorts of people. The list includes lawyers who work at law firms in litigation with MSG, even if they are not part of the litigation themselves; and potentially a man who once made a shirt that criticized Dolan. > The document was included in a 45GB cache of data hackers stole from MSG and posted online this month MSG management is not only misusing facial recognition data, they're also so inept as to store it insecurely in a way that violates their own customer's privacy. We need laws around this stuff. And in the meantime NYC should start playing hardball: if they're going to arbitrarily block people from entering MSG based on corporate vendetta then they need to lose their tax exemption (well, they should anyway...) https://reinventalbany.org/2023/02/watchdog-supports-state-b...
Cider9986
Related: The Shocking Secrets of Madison Square Garden’s Surveillance Machine: https://www.wired.com/story/madison-square-garden-jim-dolan-... Archive/paywall: https://archive.ph/iiczs Post on the MSG data breach: https://www.404media.co/hackers-publish-knicks-and-madison-s... Archive/paywall: https://archive.ph/qh3UQ Shinyhunters website: http://shnyhntww34phqoa6dcgnvps2yu7dlwzmy5lkvejwjdo6z7bmgshz...
SoftTalker
I expect that every major venue is using this technology now. You'd be pretty naive to think otherwise. And keeping lists of people they find "interesting" just goes along with that -- otherwise what's the point?
larkost
Personally I think that these conversations are focused on the wrong thing. Facial recognition stands to be a great tool in spotting "the bad guys" so that appropriate measures can be taken. For example preventing people who have repeatedly been convicted of violence ("hooliganism") from entering sports stadiums. The problem that is not being missed in the conversation about the technology is: who gets to decide who is excluded, how transparent to the need to be about this decision making process, and what is the course of appeals. Obviously the instance where MSG silently black-listed the lawyers representing their opponents in a court case is an obvious abuse that needs to be curbed. I would propose that there be tiers: smaller venues only get dinged when their behavior is obviously bad (no need for formal systems, let people sue if it becomes a problem), mid tier need to post their rules, and large companies are subject to audits and formal rules about when they are allowed to blacklist people.
josefritzishere
How utterly dystopian
382hi
archived: https://nonogra.ph/madison-square-garden-made-dossier-on-act...
crumpled
I know this sounds like a conspiracy theory, so I'm not subscribing without more validation, BUT: I think MSG has the ability to ID every person at the Knicks game who booed for DJT, and you know how petty and sensitive that person can be. Remember when Hegseth invited all the generals into one big room for some reason? Some people think that it was to point cameras at their faces and do a bit of sentiment analysis. The tech is in place. Is there enough decency or the lack of enough motivation to make these scenarios unlikely? I'm not sure.
DivingForGold
I'm convinced that a dominate use of all the exploding construction of data centers will be to ramp up spying on citizens, likely in the name of "fighting terrorism". The same is being used to require I.D for every internet user in the name of fighting child porn. The AT&T case with technician Klein proves that the government will secretly and continuously violate the laws of the land to serve their own purposes.