PATTAYA, Thailand — In the opening seconds of a Mafia Bar Pattaya livestream, the camera takes in tables, stools and the entrance to the street. For someone watching from home, it’s a look inside a bar. For someone in the frame, it can also show where they spent the evening.
For some women working in Pattaya, being recognized online carried a different risk. Women in a study of online safety worried that pictures used to promote bars could reveal where they worked to family members or abusive former partners. Their accounts raise a question that an invitation to watch a livestream leaves open. How much say do the people on camera have over where those images go? Pattaya field study
An invitation to watch from home
Mafia Bar Pattaya’s Oct. 13 YouTube broadcast invited people who couldn’t come to the bar to watch online. Wicked Bar Soi 6 advertised music and conversation in the description of its Oct. 7 broadcast. The available clip runs about 11 seconds and shows people inside the venue. Mafia Bar’s channel · Wicked Bar’s channel
The two posts were checked on their original channels for dates and descriptions, and samples of the footage were viewed. The descriptions leave out how people inside the venues can decline to appear. Consent procedures for the broadcasts remain unverified.
Customers differ on being seen
In a July 10 discussion on Reddit, a poster said they would avoid bars and restaurants that seemed to publish customer photographs without asking. A commenter welcomed appearing on social media and said they sat where a bar’s livestream camera could see them. The public thread and its date were verified. The commenters’ identities and accounts could not be independently confirmed.
In a 2025 paper, Royal Holloway researcher Taylor Robinson reported that women were often photographed for bar promotions without their full consent. Some of the women also used Facebook to present themselves on their own terms. Removing an image someone else published was harder. A technology teacher told Robinson about one woman who wanted a photo deleted after realizing how public it was. Published paper · Robinson’s profile
Robinson interviewed 60 Thai women and 16 staff members or other stakeholders during 2024 fieldwork at one Pattaya women’s center. The study documents experiences from that group and leaves the filming practices at Mafia and Wicked unresolved.
A media guide developed with sex workers in Canada recommends explaining where an identifiable image will appear and getting informed permission before publishing it. The invitations in the two Pattaya posts tell viewers outside the bar how to watch. The remaining question is what people inside are told before the camera goes live. Safe Harbour Outreach Project media guide
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