Dataminr tracked Gaza-related protests • Hacker News Board

Re: Dataminr tracked Gaza-related protests

#41

Post by asacrowflies » Mon, Mar 17, 2025, 6:53 PM UTC

tharne wrote: post #36

MegaButts wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can't expect the police to arrest criminals knowing full well the DA is immediately going to drop or reduce charges and let them loose. You can't expect the police to do their jobs?

> You can't expect the police to do their jobs? Imagine you're a programmer, or a chef, or a carpenter, really anything. Now imagine you go to work every day, put in 8-10 hours a day working hard, and at the end of each day someone in a more powerful position than yourself throws out, ignores, or otherwise destroys all of your work for that day. And this happens every day, day after day. No matter your work ethic or…

I know if I refused to do my work or even hinted I wouldn't do it...no matter if the boss destroyed it... Id be fired faster than those police lighting up a suspects vehicle with bullet holes.

Re: Dataminr tracked Gaza-related protests

#42

Post by Mountain_Skies » Mon, Mar 17, 2025, 6:53 PM UTC

CalChris wrote: post #34

lenerdenator wrote: post #6

Is this really surprising to anyone? If you're out in public and using public websites to organize protests, it's a given that data will be mined about that. The trick is to make it unattractive for those doing the enforcing to act upon their analysis of that data.

This is surprising. Why are the police monitoring constitutionally protected activity?

[flagged]

Re: Dataminr tracked Gaza-related protests

#43

Post by gusgus01 » Mon, Mar 17, 2025, 6:55 PM UTC

tharne wrote: post #36

MegaButts wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can't expect the police to arrest criminals knowing full well the DA is immediately going to drop or reduce charges and let them loose. You can't expect the police to do their jobs?

> You can't expect the police to do their jobs? Imagine you're a programmer, or a chef, or a carpenter, really anything. Now imagine you go to work every day, put in 8-10 hours a day working hard, and at the end of each day someone in a more powerful position than yourself throws out, ignores, or otherwise destroys all of your work for that day. And this happens every day, day after day. No matter your work ethic or…

Not to be flippant, that sounds like working at a lot of big tech companies nowadays. More conceptually, you have the constant churn of in house tooling meaning what you wrote last year needs to be rewritten to work with the new version of X (be it the ticketing system or the new process to store secrets or the new frontend framework that will fix everything). And even more concretely, there are teams that will fully get sunset when a new product or service deprecates them or beats them to market. Famously, that was how the iPhone was developed, with teams competing internally in Apple. https://9to5mac.com/2017/06/28/iphone-creation-click-wheel-t...

Re: Dataminr tracked Gaza-related protests

#44

Post by tptacek » Mon, Mar 17, 2025, 6:55 PM UTC

CalChris wrote: post #34

lenerdenator wrote: post #6

Is this really surprising to anyone? If you're out in public and using public websites to organize protests, it's a given that data will be mined about that. The trick is to make it unattractive for those doing the enforcing to act upon their analysis of that data.

This is surprising. Why are the police monitoring constitutionally protected activity?

When the police watch you walk down the street they are also monitoring constitutionally protected activity.

Re: Dataminr tracked Gaza-related protests

#45

Post by skrtskrt » Mon, Mar 17, 2025, 6:56 PM UTC

tharne wrote: post #33

skrtskrt wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LAPD has never been anything but a violent gang, and the DA didn't "stop prosecuting criminals"

> the DA didn't "stop prosecuting criminals" The voters of California certainly think he did: https://calmatters.org/justice/2024/11/george-gascon-pamela-...

yeah because there were tens of millions of dollars spent on right wing reactionary ad campaigns to convince people of that

Re: Dataminr tracked Gaza-related protests

#46

Post by tptacek » Mon, Mar 17, 2025, 6:56 PM UTC

shadowgovt wrote: post #38

tdb7893 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that while not surprising it's still interesting and useful to know exactly how they are doing it and what tools they are using. In the US protests are a constitutionally protected right and visibility into how they are monitoring and reacting to them is important.

If we remove the tech from the story and consider the old "colonial village test": A man walks up and down the street either shouting about, or handing out flyers, that say "We should get together and blockade main street in protest of the illegitimate taxes Congress has passed on our whiskey." Is it legal for the cops to stop him? Probably not. Is it legal for the cops to move their plans around to show up on main s…

It's more than legal for the cops to do that; it's a longstanding norm. In fact, at many protests, it's something you actively want to see, because counterprotests can get rowdy and dangerous.

Re: Dataminr tracked Gaza-related protests

#47

Post by skrtskrt » Mon, Mar 17, 2025, 6:58 PM UTC

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #42

CalChris wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is surprising. Why are the police monitoring constitutionally protected activity?

[flagged]

True, when the Zionist gangs showed up at UCLA and started shooting Roman candles, and choking out and beating protestors it did get violent really quick.

Luckily the police showed up to protect the Zionists so they could keep committing violence.

Re: Dataminr tracked Gaza-related protests

#48

Post by submeta » Mon, Mar 17, 2025, 6:59 PM UTC

[flagged]

Re: Dataminr tracked Gaza-related protests

#49

Post by CodeWriter23 » Mon, Mar 17, 2025, 7:00 PM UTC

CalChris wrote: post #34

lenerdenator wrote: post #6

Is this really surprising to anyone? If you're out in public and using public websites to organize protests, it's a given that data will be mined about that. The trick is to make it unattractive for those doing the enforcing to act upon their analysis of that data.

This is surprising. Why are the police monitoring constitutionally protected activity?

Acts in public are not protected. This, however is:

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Re: Dataminr tracked Gaza-related protests

#50

Post by shadowgovt » Mon, Mar 17, 2025, 7:00 PM UTC

tharne wrote: post #36

MegaButts wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can't expect the police to arrest criminals knowing full well the DA is immediately going to drop or reduce charges and let them loose. You can't expect the police to do their jobs?

> You can't expect the police to do their jobs? Imagine you're a programmer, or a chef, or a carpenter, really anything. Now imagine you go to work every day, put in 8-10 hours a day working hard, and at the end of each day someone in a more powerful position than yourself throws out, ignores, or otherwise destroys all of your work for that day. And this happens every day, day after day. No matter your work ethic or…

So I'm an employee at any grocery store or pre-prepared meal place (fast food, Starbucks, what have you) who does their job in compliance with a health code?

... that could, actually, explain a little bit of the work ethic (though I'm pretty sure it's "scraping along the bottom of minimum wage" that explains most of it).