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Slack Removed a Blog Post Showing How Police Use Its Tech

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Re: Slack Removed a Blog Post Showing How Police Use Its Tech

#161

Post by stormbrew »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #137
stormbrew wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure it seems very alarming that people are 'demonizing the police' if you're new to this issue -- in which case this week has woken you up to something that's been a problem for people for a very very long time. But it is not a new issue, and people's fear and pain at it is genuine. To some segments of society (who are not criminals), the police absolutely are more of a threat than criminals. When there are peop…

I'm not new to this issue and I haven't "been woken up". As I just said, I actually have experience living in a crime-ridden area. Of course the police are a problem but again, the facts simply don't line up to your statements. The police killed 1,098 people in 2019. https://mappingpoliceviolence.org Compare that to the overall murder rate (not including other crimes.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._state…

I like how you just completely ignore the part about how no one is saying "abolish the police and replace them with absolutely nothing we love crime!" You also lump various different debates all into one and assume the people you disagree with are in alignment with each other on all of them.

But it's the other side that's had its "rational thought" overridden. These are not a good faith arguments.

Re: Slack Removed a Blog Post Showing How Police Use Its Tech

#162

Post by komali2 »

ryanSrich wrote: post #108
xwowsersx wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why though? Is there not a legitimate role for policing in a civil society? And if there is, don't they need to coordinate and collaborate just like any other organization?

> Is there not a legitimate role for policing in a civil society? Look around. Most Americans would say no to this question. I don’t think they’ve thought through the consequences of that, but I guarantee a random poll would show most Americans want to abolish or >70% defund the police (which is effectively the same).

Your comment is unfair on three counts.

One, your statistics are the reverse of reality.

Two, the people that want to defund police are not the people that want to abolish the police. Considering the LAPD budget is 1.8 billion, and the NYPD budget is 6 billion, do you think that's by definition a bad position?

Three, the minority that want to abolish the police (me, various anarchist and communist groups, some general leftist groups, alt-right libertarians), absolutely have thought out the consequences of that. Most are more on the "abolish and then reform from scratch" train, because there's evidence that this works (on mobile and can't grab right now, sorry), others are on the "abolish and then reform into an entirely different concept from what exists now train" (see: https://bostonreview.net/law-justice/derecka-purnell-what-do...), and the tiniest sliver are on the "get rid of them all and make them never come back" train.

I hope this helps clear up any confusion and/or strawmen.

Re: Slack Removed a Blog Post Showing How Police Use Its Tech

#163

Post by slg »

xwowsersx wrote: post #84
sbilstein wrote: post #2

Former Slack employee here... This blog post/case study was published a few years ago by Slack's marketing team and led to a firestorm of controversy within the company. Many employees of all backgrounds spoke up about how upset they were that Slack would use a police department as marketing. Eventually the decision was made to keep it up which certainly frustrated a lot of people. I guess now the leaders have decide…

Why though? Is there not a legitimate role for policing in a civil society? And if there is, don't they need to coordinate and collaborate just like any other organization?

When most people advocate for divesting, defunding, or abolishing the police, they aren't suggesting that we go without literally any law enforcement. They simply believe the current system is too broken and corrupt to be reformed and that we need to start completely over. These advocates are generally against other avenues of reforms because those reforms can give a false sense of accomplishment without addressing the underlying problem. Reform or any level of support for the current police system in the US is therefore seen as delaying that ultimate end goal of having a just law enforcement system in place.

To put it into computer terms, it is the equivalent of your computer performance degrading over time. You can try force closing programs, restarting the computer, removing programs from autorunning at startup, updating drivers, uninstalling unused programs, etc. However sometimes none of that will truly work and you will need to reinstall the OS.

Re: Slack Removed a Blog Post Showing How Police Use Its Tech

#164

Post by dopamean »

asdff wrote: post #67
philips wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently have been learning how deadly Policing is in comparison to other jobs and it came as a surprise to me: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/01/28/chart...

In reality it's an absolute dogshit job. The hours are long, there's a very real chance of PTSD or bodily harm, and they haze you worse than bootcamp. LAPD has a problem recruiting since everyone who is level headed enough to make a good cop sees it rightly as this horrible job.

They can fix some of that on their own and they choose not to.

Re: Slack Removed a Blog Post Showing How Police Use Its Tech

#165

Post by marcinzm »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #159
marcinzm wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Society as a whole has changed and I'd argue police have changed less than the rest of society. Given the videos from the last few days it's clear that the police see themselves as immune to consequences even in the age of social media, cell phone cameras and widespread public opposition.

Sure, I agree to that absolutely. But how you get from "the police needs radical reform" to "we don't need police, abolish them" is a mystery to me.

If I want a $200k salary I don't start the negotiations at $200k, I start them at $250k knowing that I will be argued down. Likewise, the fear of a radical approach drives those in power to actually implement a productive moderate approach. If all you have is the moderate approach than those in power will implement nothing of substance.

Re: Slack Removed a Blog Post Showing How Police Use Its Tech

#166

Post by unishark »

dragontamer wrote: post #143
MuffinFlavored wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the alternative though? Pretending that if you needed protection due to crime coming your way/your family's way... you wouldn't call 911? I feel like this entire movement is really taking away credit from the "ok" and "good" cops. How many cops are there in America? Ok, some of them aren't perfect. They are racist/dicks/thirsty for power. Why does this mean as a citizen I should feel less safe because we want…

> What's the alternative though? The alternative is Slack using someone else as their marketing example, and maybe taking down this blog post. Which is what they've done. > I feel like this entire movement is really taking away credit from the "ok" and "good" cops. Why would good, or "okay" cops have to worry about being reprimanded? What has happened is a "bad" cop issued a no-knock warrant on an innocent woman, and…

The above poster is basically saying people are using the perfect as the enemy of the good. And you are arguing the perfect is better than the good. Though perhaps you wouldn't call it that. But if your standard is no one escapes justice in a country of 300 million, that seems rather close to perfect to me.

I am certainly no fan of no-knock warrants though. There are processes than can be fixed.

Re: Slack Removed a Blog Post Showing How Police Use Its Tech

#167

Post by ceilingcorner »

stormbrew wrote: post #161
ceilingcorner wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not new to this issue and I haven't "been woken up". As I just said, I actually have experience living in a crime-ridden area. Of course the police are a problem but again, the facts simply don't line up to your statements. The police killed 1,098 people in 2019. https://mappingpoliceviolence.org Compare that to the overall murder rate (not including other crimes.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._state…

I like how you just completely ignore the part about how no one is saying "abolish the police and replace them with absolutely nothing we love crime!" You also lump various different debates all into one and assume the people you disagree with are in alignment with each other on all of them. But it's the other side that's had its "rational thought" overridden. These are not a good faith arguments.

I'm not really sure what you're arguing for. It seemed to be that "the police are more of a threat than criminals", which is factually untrue, even today, before any so-called abolition of the police (which is what people are calling for.)

Also, I am not "on a side" and my original comment was calling out this attempt to make it a black-and-white issue. There are more than two options.

Re: Slack Removed a Blog Post Showing How Police Use Its Tech

#168

Post by dragontamer »

unishark wrote: post #166
dragontamer wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's the alternative though? The alternative is Slack using someone else as their marketing example, and maybe taking down this blog post. Which is what they've done. > I feel like this entire movement is really taking away credit from the "ok" and "good" cops. Why would good, or "okay" cops have to worry about being reprimanded? What has happened is a "bad" cop issued a no-knock warrant on an innocent woman, and…

The above poster is basically saying people are using the perfect as the enemy of the good. And you are arguing the perfect is better than the good. Though perhaps you wouldn't call it that. But if your standard is no one escapes justice in a country of 300 million, that seems rather close to perfect to me. I am certainly no fan of no-knock warrants though. There are processes than can be fixed.

I'm not asking for "perfection". I'm asking for an avenue to reprimand bad cops.

We all know bad cops exist. The problem is that we cannot get these bad cops fired or otherwise thrown out of the police force.

> I am certainly no fan of no-knock warrants though. There are processes than can be fixed.

I'm not even asking for no-knock warrants to be banned. The underlying issue is far more severe. We need JUSTICE. We need someone to accept responsibility for Briana Taylor's unnecessary death.

Who issued the no-knock warrant? Who was the Lieutenant in charge of the operation? Where is the police body cam footage? Why were the officers in plainclothes instead of their uniforms? Why is so much information seemingly missing about this botched operation?

--------

The best the family of Birana Taylor is able to do under these circumstances... is file a "Wrongful Death" claim against the police department. If they win the court case... the taxpayers of Kansas will pay for the death, while the officers who were in charge of the operation will be let onto the streets again without any real repercussions.

THAT is the problem. There's no mechanism of feedback what so ever. The "bad cops" remain on payroll, and will continue to make the same mistakes in some future case.

Re: Slack Removed a Blog Post Showing How Police Use Its Tech

#169

Post by detaro »

javagram wrote: post #131
revscat wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the abstract police are necessary. In today’s America, with the police as they actually exist today, they are very much not necessary, and are a drain on public safety, social order, and personal liberty.

That doesn’t make sense. There are 300 million guns in America and plenty of crime happens every year. It’s true crime is down from the historical highs of the 70s and 80s, but there are very much still murders and thefts that need to be investigated and punished. The reality is if police were abolished we’d go back to the bad old days of private detective agencies being used for security. Would you rather have some…

The argument by most seems to be not "get rid of all police and then nothing", but rather to replace it as much as possible from the ground up. Which might very well mean re-allocating resources and removing responsibilities from police, e.g. around mental health, but not getting rid all law enforcement. Phrased this way and not as a "reform" because they believe attempting to reform the existing system slowly won't work.

Re: Slack Removed a Blog Post Showing How Police Use Its Tech

#170

Post by komali2 »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #159
marcinzm wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Society as a whole has changed and I'd argue police have changed less than the rest of society. Given the videos from the last few days it's clear that the police see themselves as immune to consequences even in the age of social media, cell phone cameras and widespread public opposition.

Sure, I agree to that absolutely. But how you get from "the police needs radical reform" to "we don't need police, abolish them" is a mystery to me.

> "we don't need police, abolish them

I think it's important to not conflate this movement with the defund movement, which merely points at the for example 6 billion dollar NYPD budget and says "is this really necessary?"

Furthermore, the "abolish" movement comes with its own subtleties, that don't necessarily mean "all cops gone tomorrow." An easy exercise to illustrate this to yourself: you can imagine that an alt-right 2a gunsrights activist wearing milita patches, body armor, and holding a rifle, while chanting "abolish the police," has a very different idea in their head of what that means from a liberal social-democrat holding a "black lives matter" sign and chanting "abolish the police," can't you?

Here's a good article: https://bostonreview.net/law-justice/derecka-purnell-what-do...

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