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Citizen’s dangerous effort to cash in on vigilantism

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

#101

Post by wearywanderer »

kinghajj wrote: post #43
petermcneeley wrote: post #15

Perhaps this is a mere symptom of some other problem. In Canada I dont personally recall witnessing crime in my adult life. If I saw someone doing something criminal today I would just you know... call the cops. Perhaps in the USA the lived experience is somewhat different? Maybe more crime? Maybe the police dont show up?

While driving on Oak in SF last weekend, I saw a man get out of a car, run to an open parked Uhaul truck, grab something, then take off. Right as he left, the (presumed) owner of the stolen articles came out of the house, put his hands up, and made a "Fucking really ?" expression. My first reaction was, "Welcome to the Bay Area! Watch your shit!"

Welcome to the Bay Area, don't dress provocatively....

It really annoys me that victim blaming isn't taboo for property crimes.

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

#102

Post by evo_9 »

kleer001 wrote: post #85
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.

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

'Extra Extra Read All About it!' from anon newspaper kid standing on the street-corner ~100+ years ago (probably older).

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

#103

Post by Seattle3503 »

vmception wrote: post #21

> Citizen does moderate comments, but "two people having an argument about whether or not someone’s comment is racist drives engagement," LOL, my publicist does this on linkedin and other places for us because people are gullible. Source article: Executive of does a thing 0 engagement, nobody knows Social Media version: [First] Executive of does a thing 15,000 comments, 2 million reach, supporters and detractors argu…

Who are you?

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

#104

Post by squarefoot »

wolverine876 wrote: post #44

In case people are missing the broader point of the article, beyond the horrifying incident at the beginning: "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 ther…

When people feel insecure they're soon going to ask for their liberties to be removed. Every politician knows that, and fueling that feel is the best recipe to create a soft dictatorship with public approval.

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

#105

Post by Nextgrid »

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.

You don't even have to break the law.

Hacker News and the software engineering industry has a decent influence in the world, as we can't (yet) be automated away and it takes years to become proficient.

If we as an industry collectively agree that X is bad and refuse to work on it, X will be significantly disrupted, as their only option might to be offering more money (to get someone to defect and renege on the promise) than they can afford or that makes sense with their economics.

Creepy adtech could die tomorrow if people refuse to work on it. The same applies to this Citizen crap.

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

#106

Post by jjk166 »

petermcneeley wrote: post #15

Perhaps this is a mere symptom of some other problem. In Canada I dont personally recall witnessing crime in my adult life. If I saw someone doing something criminal today I would just you know... call the cops. Perhaps in the USA the lived experience is somewhat different? Maybe more crime? Maybe the police dont show up?

Crime is a non-issue in the US. The problem here is a feeling of general helplessness: there are many disturbing trends and quality of life is clearly falling for many, but it's things like crappy infrastructure that never gets repaired, schools implementing dumb policies, growth in bureaucracy in nearly every facet in life, stagnant wages and declining employment in traditional fields, etc. The symptoms are obvious but the causes are complex and viable cures require cooperation on a scale most now consider unrealistic.

But staying informed feels like it helps, even though it generally doesn't. And in the particular case of crime, that's a situation where the actions of individuals could at least in theory make a difference. The benefits to the community of identifying a stolen bike are trivial, and even then you're very unlikely to ever actually do it, but one can fantasize about heroically saving the day and helping your neighbor and that fantasy scratches the itch we all have to be part of something greater. And if you can find a whole bunch of people who all want to do their part and help, maybe there's hope that the bigger issues aren't so intractable after all.

Unfortunately the problem will only get worse until the nation finds a healthy way to deal with the despair. God only knows when or if that'll happen though.

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

#107

Post by hef19898 »

BigW1lly wrote: post #74
awal2 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also don't think I witnessed much crime until I moved to Seattle. In the six years I've been here though I've witnessed: 1. Somebody broke into my Aunt's place while nobody was home and took some jewelry and a cell phone. Police came by, handed her a form, said nice things for five minutes then took off. Never heard anything about it again. 2. My car window smashed after being parked on the street overnight. I call…

You live in Seattle, there's your main problem. The local government keeps the police department hogtied, cops can't do much outside of their narrow rules of engagement. On top of that, the city's residents don't seem too enthusiastic about the 2nd Amendment either. So who or what is going to protect the flock?? Nothing it seems.

Vigilantism gets innocent people killed. Cops not showing up, and not investigating, has nothing to do with "rules of engagement," (law enforcement is not working in a war zone), but is just plain incompetence or refusal to do ones job on behalf of the SPD. That being said, the picture non-US residents get from US law enforcement is basically incompetent neglect of duty anyway.

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

#108

Post by manuelabeledo »

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.

RoboCop comes to mind, which is ironic since the movie was obviously a parody. Also, isn't this what reality shows like Cops were about?

There is a large market for morbidity.

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

#109

Post by underwater »

vmception wrote: post #21

> Citizen does moderate comments, but "two people having an argument about whether or not someone’s comment is racist drives engagement," LOL, my publicist does this on linkedin and other places for us because people are gullible. Source article: Executive of does a thing 0 engagement, nobody knows Social Media version: [First] Executive of does a thing 15,000 comments, 2 million reach, supporters and detractors argu…

Plenty of people are smart enough to manipulate others, but don't because they're not assholes.

Manipulating people for personal gain doesn't make you smart. It just makes you a psychopath.

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

#110

Post by [deleted] »

petermcneeley wrote: post #15

Perhaps this is a mere symptom of some other problem. In Canada I dont personally recall witnessing crime in my adult life. If I saw someone doing something criminal today I would just you know... call the cops. Perhaps in the USA the lived experience is somewhat different? Maybe more crime? Maybe the police dont show up?

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