51–60 of 70 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Does Citizen break regulations in some way? I thought that filming crime and police was solidly legal.
I mean, sharing your car is legal but that's not really what Uber ever was.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes it's anxiety inducing but doesn't it just tell us the truth of who we are? If you can't handle the anxiety, nobody is forcing you to have it on your phone nor are they forcing you to be part of it. In other countries, the government has cameras everywhere and use the footage to find and prosecute. Apparently America prefers to have individuals take on that role.
>nobody is forcing you to have it on your phone nor are they forcing you to be part of it. are you so sure about that? You might happen to be the 'wrong guy' who accidentally gets into the crossfire of the citizen app mob one day. ""first name? What is it?! publish ALL info," Frame told employees working in a Citizen Slack room who were working on the case. "FIND THIS FUCK," he told them. "LETS GET THIS GUY BEFORE MI…
The encouragement of cell phone footage works both ways - it can document more crime that induces anxiety from the right or it can document more police abuses. Citizen's agenda is off but their tool of choice is right.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A majority of private security in the country works through intimidation alone. Legally they have next to no rights, at least different from you or me or any other bystander. If I ever get harassed by mall cops or anyone else of the sort my response is always to either ignore them completely or ask them to call the cops. In both cases I am immediately left alone.
Yeah I don’t know the laws of private security companies. For example, if you hire private security firm to guard a bank, are they allowed to use lethal force to protect the bank? It’s scary how close to the real deal vehicle this Citizen patrol van looks like. I think they can even put police lights on legally if I’m not mistaken.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes it's anxiety inducing but doesn't it just tell us the truth of who we are? If you can't handle the anxiety, nobody is forcing you to have it on your phone nor are they forcing you to be part of it. In other countries, the government has cameras everywhere and use the footage to find and prosecute. Apparently America prefers to have individuals take on that role.
Is "nobody is forcing you to have it on your phone nor are they forcing you to be part of it" really the standard that we want when judging whether to share our revulsion about a company or product? You're not wrong about that part, I'm just not sure what your point is. It's no secret that social media in general stokes many of our worst impulses. Citizen strikes me as somewhat unique because it starts from such a ne…
Everything is a choice here. There are plenty of countries out there which would have chosen to ban Citizen along with a whole long list of other even more idiotic things but this country is about freedom of choice even if that choice is bad for the greater community.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They just haven't been sued yet by the family of a user who has been killed while filming a violent crime. When they do their insurance costs will become astronomical. This pay structure encourages users to put themselves in harm's way.
How does this work for freelance journalists? Their risk is astronomical too.
Said journalists are generally educated and have some training, especially around ethics. At least they're supposed to. This keeps them from shoving a camera in everyone's face while a crime is unfolding.
Citizen is taking contributions from whoever the fuck...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes it's anxiety inducing but doesn't it just tell us the truth of who we are? If you can't handle the anxiety, nobody is forcing you to have it on your phone nor are they forcing you to be part of it. In other countries, the government has cameras everywhere and use the footage to find and prosecute. Apparently America prefers to have individuals take on that role.
If it's anything like the Ring "neighborhood alert" notifications I briefly had on after getting a doorbell: no, not really. A filtered (only the worst things get reported) dubiously-accurate (lots of "heard something that sounded like gunshots") view of a large geographic area (they sent me stuff covering a much larger area than I would've been concerned of) isn't "the truth of who we are," it's just a window into h…
The citizen app is especially egregious but it's not the only app that does this. Unfortunately all social apps that rely on engagement have to create a false perception of the world in order to maximize engagement. The government is not going to regulate the UX design here. It's up to the individual to learn of their dystopian reality.
I personally don't really want to know about every single crime but if I had the choice I would choose for every single crime to be captured on video. You can call it a police state or vigilante state but I'm fine with that.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Curious - what can this private Citizen branded patrol actually do? Isn't it just a camera on wheels? It can't make arrests, it can't handcuff people, it can't do much legally.
Observe and report, and verbally harass if necessary, in an "acceptable" manner. Using robots apparently is not yet in vogue, so citizen branded patrol might be the current local-minima for this type of function: https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/13/16771148/robot-security-... I knew someone that worked at the SFSPCA and they said the robot absolutely put a dent in car-break-ins, needling, and encampments in the anima…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> One thing I do seem to see over and over is a pattern where journalists are a little annoyed when companies encroach on the role of journalists but do so for less money. While there will be some bias from being challenged, I think there's also plenty of good reasons for journalists to challenge these sorts of companies. Journalism is a profession and brings with it a lot of ethical considerations. Teaching of journ…
Then would you willing to gatekeep people from calling themselves journalists, ala a license via something like a bar exam, where violating journalistic standards could get you "disbarred".
Again I think there's a place for blogging, factual videos on TikTok, people working their way into the industry more organically, and special interest groups, etc. But I do think there's a need for the bulk of mainstream news to live up to the responsibility they have to the public.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's so much worse than that. It's, quite literally, a right wing psyop. It's well established that people's fears about crime are much more correlated with news coverage than actual levels of crime. I'm having trouble finding it right now, but there was a recent survey that showed something like ~55% of Americans think crime is higher than it was in the early 90s. It's not even remotely close. We're back up to... 20…
This is one of those things that I just can't reconcile with my own experience. Studies say that crime is actually down but I'm witnessing more and more general lawlessness. A few weeks ago I saw someone take a case of beer out of a supermarket without paying. They caught him on camera and no one tried to stop him. The manager told me it was pointless to call the police. Public urination is way more common than it us…
There were a little less than 2,000 shootings in New York City in 2020. That's very bad, given that for a few years the city had managed to dip under 1,000 shootings. An extremely noticeable spike. But as a point of comparison, in 1991 there were over 5,000 shootings in NYC. And those numbers aren't taking into account three decades of population growth. Even when you look at crime overall and not just violent crimes, we were coming off of a ~5% national crime rate in 1991.
From what I can see, GP is correct that we are mostly looking at a return to 2012-level crime stats, and in some areas maybe a return to 2000-2010 levels. I'm convinced that people just can't remember any earlier than that. The 90s were really bad, if ~55% of Americans think we're at those levels already, then ~55% of Americans are just wrong. They don't have an accurate grasp of what crime used to look like.
When you look at >2015 rates, then you do see crime going up. That's a real thing, and it's worth paying attention to. But that doesn't really change anything about the overall trajectory of crime over the past decade. It especially doesn't change anything about the overall trajectory of crime over the past >1 decade.
> But when I go to the grocery store I end up paying more for things like milk and meat.
There's a much simpler explanation here, which is that food categories like milk and meat are completely excluded from many inflation calculations, specifically because their prices are highly volatile. An increase in the price of food won't be directly reflected in any reported inflation numbers, at least as far as I know.
Like many high-level economy measures, inflation is not always a useful way to talk about how costs are changing and what regular people are experiencing. It's purposefully disconnected from many "on-the-ground" prices of goods that are important to consumers.