Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Citizen’s dangerous effort to cash in on vigilantism

vice.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 237 posts

Re: Citizen’s dangerous effort to cash in on vigilantism

#81

Post by [deleted] »

xvector wrote: post #58
getcrunk wrote: post #9

It's crazy watching the world turn into a dystopia and being powerless to stop it. It not just about this company. If they fail another will replace it. Society seems to be on a convergent path with dystopian scifi. This, Chicago police automated policing program (detects crime before it happenes and actually hurt innocent people), racially biased facial recognition. I read an article today about some DNA software be…

> and being powerless to stop it. You are only powerless so long as you decide to stay within the comfortable confines of the law. The crowd of Hacker News alone certainly has enough ability to cause serious problems for Citizen, whether through activism within their own megacorporations or independent ability.

[deleted]

Re: Citizen’s dangerous effort to cash in on vigilantism

#82

Post by johncessna »

silexia wrote: post #80
the_snooze wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything is "BREAKING NEWS" these days, complete with fancy graphics and soundtracks. But there just isn't enough news day-to-day to warrant that level of importance. Not everyday is 9/11, much to news outlets' dismay.

I agree, I watched the weather channel with my father in law yesterday... Everything was "THREAT!" and "POSSIBLE TORNADO", etc. This is being shown in Southern California lol and they are reporting on minor weather risks a thousand miles away. Fox news does the same thing... Find crime anywhere in the country, bonus points if it involves sex or a minority and make it a headline if it involves an immigrant.

they all do it

Re: Citizen’s dangerous effort to cash in on vigilantism

#83

Post by OldGoodNewBad »

krastanov wrote: post #71
_vertigo wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This attitude is fundamentally incompatible with American (really, all Western) civic values. It goes against what our entire system of law is built on.

> People demand justice, in other words punishment Not being able to distinguish justice and punishment sounds terrifying. To me this is as fundamental as "innocent until proven guilty". I am simply not interested in living in a society in which these two notions are confused for each other (and no, I am not privileged rich elite that gets to not be affected by crime).

Don’t complain about vigilantism. Worry about a crooked justice system. Vigilantism is coming, there is no stopping it. Terrify yourself, or agitate for the proper punishment of criminals.

Re: Citizen’s dangerous effort to cash in on vigilantism

#85

Post by kleer001 »

the_snooze wrote: post #70
johncessna wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The whole idea behind Protect is that you could convince people to pay for the product once you’ve gotten them to the highest point of anxiety you can possibly get them to," one former employee said, referring to Citizen's subscription service. "Citizen can’t make money unless it makes its users believe there are constant, urgent threats around them at all times," There are a lot of businesses built on this model.…

Everything is "BREAKING NEWS" these days, complete with fancy graphics and soundtracks. But there just isn't enough news day-to-day to warrant that level of importance. Not everyday is 9/11, much to news outlets' dismay.

These days? Well, the last 40 years... CNN started in 1980.

Re: Citizen’s dangerous effort to cash in on vigilantism

#86

Post by MomoXenosaga »

ceejayoz wrote: post #46
esturk wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citizens are conditioned to believe that police will solve all the crimes from shows like True Crime, CSI, etc. And when said criminals are such masterminds that even the police can't catch, they are then conditioned by superhero movies from Marvel, Superman, Batman, etc. that someone should rise up to catch such criminals, this is the end state. See, every kid is taught and empowered growing up that they should stan…

All true, and there's an additional factor: these shows, and news coverage about crime, make people think crime is far more prevalent (and rising) than it is. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/16/voters-perc... Local news Facebook comments are full of "there's so much crime! it was never like this when I was younger!" but the reality is completely in the opposite direction.

It's better for people to worry if their daughter is going to get raped than for them to question the growing wealth disparity.

Re: Citizen’s dangerous effort to cash in on vigilantism

#87

Post by wearywanderer »

munk-a wrote: post #12

I know this is beside the main point of the article - but the fact that the CEO's surname is Frame is one of these truth is stranger than fiction moments. If you wrote up a drama about someone writing an app like this and gave the CEO that surname you'd be called a hack.

Seems like an unfortunate case of nominative determinism.

Re: Citizen’s dangerous effort to cash in on vigilantism

#88

Post by kodah »

We talk a lot about mobs here. It seems someone has monetized the mob. Not only am I disappointed in the proponents of mobs and call out culture, but I am doubly disappointed in the people who profit from them. Social media, Citizen/Vigilante, to the mainstream news.

We are so lost.

Re: Citizen’s dangerous effort to cash in on vigilantism

#89

Post by jancsika »

I want to try my hand at the n-gate.com summary for this one:

"Some webshits finish The Wire and answer the question we've all been wondering since the finale aired: why didn't the Baltimore Police simply write an app to crowdsource 'juking the stats'? Citizen (Uber for Reddit's Boston Bomber Fiasco) is born, but Apple doesn't have time to review it as they are busy finishing their own dystopian surveillance nightmare-- Airtag (Uber for Stalking). Luckily, an American HN arrives to remind everyone that actual crime has been falling since the 90s. Given the low probability of anything bad ever happening in the U.S. due widespread misperception of the truth, HN moves on to a story about adtech delivery speedups on client machines."

Re: Citizen’s dangerous effort to cash in on vigilantism

#90

Post by dangrossman »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #6

> Citizen, using a new livestreaming service it had just launched called OnAir, would catch the suspect live on air, with thousands of people watching. I'm sorry, is this describing real life or an episode of Black Mirror? It's so blatantly dystopian that I'm at a loss for words.

This is also one of the main scenes of the Tom Hanks 2017 flop of a movie "The Circle".
Post reply on HN