Viewer-submitted drone video shows hundreds of sharks off coast of Masonboro Island
The short version: A fun shark-spotting drone clip from WECT News 6 is a reminder of how normalized aerial and camera surveillance has become, for better and worse.
Our Take
Credit to WECT News 6 and the viewer who sent in this drone footage of hundreds of sharks cruising off Masonboro Island — it's a genuinely cool piece of citizen journalism and a nice reminder that cameras in the sky can do a lot of good, from marine research to search and rescue.
That said, this is also a good moment to notice how casually we've all come to accept aerial and automated observation as part of daily life. A drone counting sharks off a beach is harmless fun. A network of government and private cameras logging every car that passes a given point, day after day, is a different animal entirely — and it's spreading just as fast, with a lot less public debate about who gets to watch, store, and share that data.
If you want to see how much of that infrastructure has already gone up near you, check our map of known ALPR locations, and if you'd rather push back than just watch, our take-action page has concrete steps for getting involved locally.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of WECT News 6, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.