Police surveilled protests with help from Twitter-affiliated startup Dataminr • Hacker News Board

Re: Police surveilled protests with help from Twitter-affiliated startup Dataminr

#211

Post by Natsu » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 2:54 PM UTC

slg wrote: post #131

Natsu wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least 17 people were murdered during this time and a few more since this was posted: https://www.thepostemail.com/2020/06/03/twitter-user-compile... The posts are public and the police cannot go after anyone for simply engaging in protected speech, but they can and have identified looters and murderers who have tried to discredit the fact that black lives matter with their actions. So I'm not clear why so many peo…

I hadn't heard of that website, but this is how the author of that article describes herself: >Sharon Rondeau has operated The Post & Email since April 2010, focusing on the Obama birth certificate investigation... Linking to a website like that is going to destroy whatever point you were trying to make for a large portion of your audience.

It links to primary sources on everything, so this seems to me more a distraction than a meaningful critique. The fact that this is all easily verifiable, yet hard to find compilations of, is a critique in the other direction.

Re: Police surveilled protests with help from Twitter-affiliated startup Dataminr

#212

Post by tharne » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 2:58 PM UTC

raxxorrax wrote: post #171

nullc wrote: post #107

This kind of surveillance is not very effective for preventing or solving crimes. It is much more effective at making lists of people willing to lawfully and peacefully stand for the human rights or others, -- "potential subversives", as the parties monitoring might call them. Imagine, instead, if law enforcement were to stand outside of a marijuana-legalization rally and collect the sort of data effectively collecte…

Twitter-affiliated is interesting too since the pretend to care so much about the issue. Well, they seem to care on a very personal level.

When corporations take a stand on an issue, they're just making a bet on who they think is going to win, it's got nothing to do with morals.

I guarantee if Trump got legitimately reelected with 80% of the vote, you'd see every company quickly replacing those "We Stand with BLM" banners with some bright red MAGA flair.

Re: Police surveilled protests with help from Twitter-affiliated startup Dataminr

#213

Post by gophicer » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 2:59 PM UTC

textgel wrote: post #194

gophicer wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You must be white.

Does anyone know mechanically what this^ is? The account has sat dormant for 2 years after making 2 comments in 2018 and after 2 years of silence it spits out this. Is it part of some sort of farmed bot network? Or is it an old account that got cracked and used by spammers?

Yeah not hacked but thanks for confirming your whiteness.

Re: Police surveilled protests with help from Twitter-affiliated startup Dataminr

#214

Post by FilterSweep » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 3:02 PM UTC

darawk wrote: post #115

FilterSweep wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This actually illustrates an interesting point about think tanks. Amren may have never done a lynching, but the shadowy nature of how think tanks can launder money may implicate an associated group in modern-day lynchings covered up by the police[0]. The Koches, one of the largest financiers of right wing groups was built oil refineries for both Stalin and Hitler(the reich’s second largest refinery). They scrubbed th…

> Amren may have never done a lynching, but the shadowy nature of how think tanks can launder money may implicate an associated group in modern-day lynchings covered up by the police[0]. I agree. But the right would say the same thing about Antifa. Antifa, as a loose organization, has certainly engaged in various forms of violence and crime. Maybe not as much as the far-right groups, but not none, either. If the stan…

I do seriously believe that. I’ve seen enough cases where young teens have been harassed and targeted for supporting BLM

With that said, I agree with you on most of your other sentiments.

Liberalism simply can’t handle plausible deniability.

Re: Police surveilled protests with help from Twitter-affiliated startup Dataminr

#215

Post by rsynnott » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 3:03 PM UTC

sacks2k wrote: post #206

To have a safe society, you need to either have lots of surveillance, so people know they are being watched and will think twice about committing crimes (countries with very string gun laws like England and Australia have very strong surveillance systems in place) or the ability for anyone to defend themselves legally against said criminal. When you try yo get rid of both guns and surveillance, it only increases the…

> To have a safe society, you need to either have lots of surveillance, so people know they are being watched and will think twice about committing crimes (countries with very string gun laws like England and Australia have very strong surveillance systems in place) or the ability for anyone to defend themselves legally against said criminal

So, the issue here is that you've picked two countries out of the vast number of countries who ban or severely restrict guns. There are plenty of countries with few or no guns which don't have significant public surveillance systems.

Re: Police surveilled protests with help from Twitter-affiliated startup Dataminr

#216

Post by iron0013 » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 3:25 PM UTC

textgel wrote: post #194

gophicer wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You must be white.

Does anyone know mechanically what this^ is? The account has sat dormant for 2 years after making 2 comments in 2018 and after 2 years of silence it spits out this. Is it part of some sort of farmed bot network? Or is it an old account that got cracked and used by spammers?

Your account is less than 2 months old.

Re: Police surveilled protests with help from Twitter-affiliated startup Dataminr

#217

Post by dfxm12 » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 3:34 PM UTC

thekid314 wrote: post #105

Natsu wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least 17 people were murdered during this time and a few more since this was posted: https://www.thepostemail.com/2020/06/03/twitter-user-compile... The posts are public and the police cannot go after anyone for simply engaging in protected speech, but they can and have identified looters and murderers who have tried to discredit the fact that black lives matter with their actions. So I'm not clear why so many peo…

In Boston I was standing beside the police as the let looting occur. There were only about 5 shops broken into and only 1 that I saw looted, but the police were standing 10 feet away from one and didn't do anything about it.

In some areas, the cops are in league with the violent counter-protesters, which is why they watch them assault law-abiding people and do nothing about it:

...dozens of police looked on, in some cases chatting and sharing pizza with the group. They included Officer Joseph Goodwin Jr., whose brother Richie shoved one protester and was photographed punching another. [0]

Maybe it's the same thing with the looters.

0 - https://www.inquirer.com/news/fishtown-philadelphia-communit...

Re: Police surveilled protests with help from Twitter-affiliated startup Dataminr

#218

Post by UncleMeat » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 3:42 PM UTC

due737y3 wrote: post #129

nullc wrote: post #107

This kind of surveillance is not very effective for preventing or solving crimes. It is much more effective at making lists of people willing to lawfully and peacefully stand for the human rights or others, -- "potential subversives", as the parties monitoring might call them. Imagine, instead, if law enforcement were to stand outside of a marijuana-legalization rally and collect the sort of data effectively collecte…

I'm not sure the crime solving utility is wholly relevant here, police have other duties like maintaining public safety. The obvious utility seems to be monitoring different protest zones for signs that violence is beginning to break out. If x people are suddenly tweeting about a fire or gun shots near an active protest then you know it would probably be wise to at least send a scout over there to evaluate the situat…

> police have other duties like maintaining public safety

This duty has been used to justify arresting peaceful people and creating violent situations for decades. "He was gonna cause trouble".

Re: Police surveilled protests with help from Twitter-affiliated startup Dataminr

#219

Post by dfxm12 » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 3:49 PM UTC

darawk wrote: post #35

stefan_ wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first obvious point is that protesting is a constitutionally protected activity, as is any political speech on Twitter, and this is interpreted extremely widely - so why are public institutions in the business of surveilling this legal, ney protected activity? But there is more to it. Courts have long recognized that state activity that can be reasonably construed to chill exercise of ones constitutional freedoms…

> The first obvious point is that protesting is a constitutionally protected activity, as is any political speech on Twitter, and this is interpreted extremely widely - so why are public institutions in the business of surveilling this legal, ney protected activity? There are lots of things that are protected activities that I would like surveiled. Militias. The KKK. Neo-nazis. I certainly hope the FBI and other law…

Cops are certainly aware of white supremacist activities, but they don't need to surveil anyone:

In the 2006 bulletin, the FBI detailed the threat of white nationalists and skinheads infiltrating police in order to disrupt investigations against fellow members and recruit other supremacists.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/fbi-white-supremacists-i...

Also, let's not forget the KKK's history of organized crime. They've earned any surveillance they're under. It's far from a straight comparison between them and ad hoc protesters when you're talking about "protected activities".

Re: Police surveilled protests with help from Twitter-affiliated startup Dataminr

#220

Post by tharne » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 4:13 PM UTC

Natsu wrote: post #82

slg wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my opinion, this goes because just surveilling a legal protest. These protests were specifically against the police's abuse of their power. This resulted in a police response that was much more adversarial than a traditional legal protest would face. Aiding the police in surveilling protesters allows police to further abuse their power and target protesters for retribution. Providing this monitoring isn't that dif…

At least 17 people were murdered during this time and a few more since this was posted: https://www.thepostemail.com/2020/06/03/twitter-user-compile... The posts are public and the police cannot go after anyone for simply engaging in protected speech, but they can and have identified looters and murderers who have tried to discredit the fact that black lives matter with their actions. So I'm not clear why so many peo…

> So I'm not clear why so many people are against the police catching the violent criminals who undermine the message of the many peaceful protesters.

It's because human beings are tribal by nature and tend to take social queues from those around them. SV and most major metro areas are overwhelming liberal, and right now it's trendy in those circles to issue blanket condemnations of all police activity with little regard for nuance.

In a lot of ways it's very similar to George W. Bush and co.'s "You with us or against us" mentally shortly after 9/11. Then, like now, any nuance or pointing out of grey areas were seen as a form of disloyalty and siding with the enemy, despite the matter itself being very complex, and yes, nuanced.