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Dataminr tracked Gaza-related protests

theintercept.com

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Re: Dataminr tracked Gaza-related protests

#131

Post by Aloisius »

Centigonal wrote: post #123
coolspot wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every demographic commits petty crimes and code violations at about the same rate Do you have data backing this claim? For example, homicides (that are not a subject for reporting bias) don’t follow a uniform distribution, so I would expect other crimes to also be non-uniform.

I remember, back when cannabis was illegal in most states, a common argument was that white and black people reported using cannabis at the same rate when surveyed. However, many, many more black people ended up in prison for it. Here is a survey of US youths that supports this premise: https://monitoringthefuture.org/data/panel/demographic-subgr...

I'm confused. That doesn't appear to show the same rates between demographics.

It appears to show generally more frequent use in men than women, younger than older and until somewhat recently, white than black or hispanic.

Re: Dataminr tracked Gaza-related protests

#132

Post by coolspot »

Centigonal wrote: post #123
coolspot wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every demographic commits petty crimes and code violations at about the same rate Do you have data backing this claim? For example, homicides (that are not a subject for reporting bias) don’t follow a uniform distribution, so I would expect other crimes to also be non-uniform.

I remember, back when cannabis was illegal in most states, a common argument was that white and black people reported using cannabis at the same rate when surveyed. However, many, many more black people ended up in prison for it. Here is a survey of US youths that supports this premise: https://monitoringthefuture.org/data/panel/demographic-subgr...

> people reported using cannabis at the same rate when surveyed. However, many, many more black people ended up in prison for it.

As I understand it, people went to prison mostly for selling or possessing amounts that are implying selling. Which might explain the difference. Would you go to prison for possessing a single joint back then?

Re: Dataminr tracked Gaza-related protests

#134

Post by amarcheschi »

jimbob45 wrote: post #121
amarcheschi wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just today I was preparing some slides for a course that makes the student participate and show some topics we're interested in regarding social and ethical issues in compsci I googled a bit and I found a hn comment that talked about an article which explains what you say Basically, they estimate drug use in the population, and they draw a map, and black and white people more or less have the same habits in drugs use…

Sounds like that estimate is doing all of the heavy lifting and cannot, by definition, ever be verified.

Yeah, that's quite a strong assumption. Basically, they're assuming that the local drug use is similar to the national one. While not perfect, they provide some other cases in which these data were deemed more trustworthy than police reports. at least to me it is quite crystalline that a system relying on past police data to predict future crime will be inherently biased by the fact that the police data itself is biased towards certain demographics

Re: Dataminr tracked Gaza-related protests

#135

Post by JumpCrisscross »

ngruhn wrote: post #133

Don’t you have to register protests in the US? So if there registered the police already knows about them, right? And if not they are illegal, no?

> And if not they are illegal, no

Usually not, no. At least not until lawfully ordered to disburse.

Re: Dataminr tracked Gaza-related protests

#137

Post by sureglymop »

ngruhn wrote: post #133

Don’t you have to register protests in the US? So if there registered the police already knows about them, right? And if not they are illegal, no?

This isn't a statement about these specific protests (that I'm not informed enough about) but don't you find "registering" a protest at least a little bit laughable?

Re: Dataminr tracked Gaza-related protests

#138

Post by [deleted] »

rqtwteye wrote: post #3

Unless there is a massive rethink of a lot of laws we are running into a surveillance state worse than Orwell could have come up with. "No expectation of privacy in a public space" made sense when there were no databases that could record and analyze everything that's going on and people didn't live half of their lives on the internet. And tech is only going to accelerate the ease of total surveillance. I think Jeffe…

[deleted]

Re: Dataminr tracked Gaza-related protests

#140

Post by 7402 »

ngruhn wrote: post #133

Don’t you have to register protests in the US? So if there registered the police already knows about them, right? And if not they are illegal, no?

It depends where you are and the circumstances. You certainly need a Parade Permit if you will be marching down a city street blocking traffic, e.g, for New York City: https://www.nyc.gov/site/nypd/services/law-enforcement/permi...
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