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Facebook ‘glitch’ that deleted the Castile shooting video: It was the police
- LeoPanthera 10y agoFor those who didn't read the article: This is not a story about NSA-style backdoors to Facebook. They took her phone, which was already logged in, and manually deleted it.
- option_greek 10y agoIs that even legal ?
- kevingadd 10y agoNo.
- jgome 10y agoBackground info here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/07/07/facebook_drops_feed_of_philando_castile_shooting/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/07/07/facebook_drops_feed_...
- madaxe_again 10y agoThis is clearly not true, as this would require law enforcement to do something illegal, which is impossible, as how can the law break the law? Right, they can't, and never have. Also, if she didn't want this to happen she a) shouldn't have had her phone in the car b) shouldn't have got in a car with a man who was going to be shot and c) shouldn't have filmed the nice polite officer doing his job. I mean, you wouldn't like it if someone filmed you at work. Edit: sorry, this was dripping with sarcasm, as the tone here usually shifts to victim blaming as the day wears on.
- Cenk 10y agoThey killed him and then deleted the evidence before calling an ambulance?!
- tajen 10y agoIt seems it's communicated with a "black life matters" background. Isn't there a general problem of the police being overly brutal and using its authority in a malevolent way in USA, whether augmented by racism or not? I live in France, where we've just had terrorist attacks, and I'm afraid we'll meet the same pattern, 15 years later than USA: - People want the police to do its job (securing the streets, which goes from checking car insurances to being detectives on terrorism), - So they vote for more police, - The police doesn't do much more than assaulting easy targets, picking up girls who come to lodge a charge (true story), and walk on cyclist lanes (not much traffic enforcement because it's unpopular and not much detective work because it's risky), - So people vote even more right-wing, - Police has more powers, but still doesn't do its job much, and assaults even more weak people, - Then we get people who kill police (like in Dallas) or burn police cars (like in Paris) because they're abusing their power. Already, President Hollande made the same talk and took the same path on 13th Nov 2015 as Bush on 11th Sept 2001, so I'm a little afraid there's a trend were. Now what societal changes could happen that would disrupt a race to the bottom of police brutality, like in USA?
- pieter_mj 10y agoExcept in Europe there's no second amendmend, so a possible raise in police brutality is probably more tied to racist conceptions.
- krrrh 10y agoI think there are two other historical trends at play in the US (and elsewhere). - A lot of shitty policing, and covering up of crimes by police has always existed, and we're just much more aware of it because everyone now has a video camera in their pockets. It's possible that police brutality had always been this bad, or worse. - The general fitness and preparedness level of police has likely declined along with the rest of society. A police officer should be confident that they can handle and control a situation physically, but they are more inclined to rely on tasers or guns if they feel like they could get overwhelmed by a situation. In Sam Harris's interview with Jocko Willink he mentions a video[1] of 3 large cops taking over 5 minutes to subdue a half-naked man in socks. It's hard to watch it and believe that the cops had any adequate training or confidence in how to handle a situation without relying on weapons. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2O-QEsv0ZEg&app=desktop https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2O-QEsv0ZEg&app=desktop
- jacquesm 10y agoUnbelievable. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BugWAiIHTOw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BugWAiIHTOw Not for the faint of heart or those that can't deal with blood. Deleting evidence in a situation like this should be in a special category all by itself. Note that the couple's four year old daughter was also present.
- madaxe_again 10y agoDestroying evidence is indeed a crime, and a severe one at that - but if they just withdrew it, unpublished it without deleting it, then it's a grey area at best. It's unlikely that anyone will face anything for this - just as unlikely that the officer who shot him will face any charges.
- Cenk 10y agoIsn’t even accessing her phone without a search warrant illegal? Surely it had nothing to do with the crime being committed (obviously, since the only crime that took place is the murder of an innocent man by the police)
- madaxe_again 10y agoYou'd think, but I'd wager the offence that they do write up is driving with a broken tail light, which is apparently a capital offence. It'd be nice to imagine that they'd look into the illegal search they carried out, but rather, they'll likely fixate on how he was actually definitely guilty of a crime and this was absolutely justified. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-p-sherouse/the-problem-with-broken-taillights_b_7030592.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-p-sherouse/the-problem-wi...
- coldpie 10y agoPolice in the US are above the law. As evidenced by recent unjustified police killings, they are allowed to execute people in the street with no repercussions. So I don't think accessing a phone without a warrant and deleting evidence is even going to register.
- sea2 10y agoLook at the consequences in Dallas! Humanity has not dealt with bad information reaching this many of its lunatics at this kind of speed. IMHO this is and should be the highest priority bug on the issue list. Mark Zuckerberg and Larry Page have no idea what to do about it and by keeping quiet about it or being defensive about it isn't helping. Just try talking about slowing the speed of unprocessed information reaching the mentally ill, the ignorant or misguided and you will be taken out like the communist party is running the show. I expect better from the smart people of silicon valley. I expect them to work out a fix. No one else has the capability.
- maglavaitss 10y agoDon't hold your breath on it, SV is more concerned on how to invade our privacy and push ads aggresively.
- madaxe_again 10y agoI think you make a salient point. Historically, news either remained local and did not propagate, or if it did, it propagated slowly, and thus the impact was diffused, largely inhibiting reactionary movement. Now, we not only have instantaneous hypersensationalised global media, but the filter-bubble echo chambers of social media which amplify and distort events to fit their world view and agenda, whatever that may be. It's sad, really, as once upon a time we believed the Internet could bring global unity - but rather, it has deepened divisions, pushed political thought to extremes (defensiveness is one hell of a drug), and has brought about much of the societal ill we now see in developed countries. Is there a solution? Facebook seem to be trying to break people out of their bubbles, but the thing is, people like their bubbles, as they're safe and cozy and they don't get angry at what someone they disagree with wrote. Now, I'm pretty sure this same argument was espoused about handbills and movable type, and we demonstrably survived print, but again, velocity is the killer. I'm not sure if it's different or not. Either way, it's the old tribal instincts doing their thing - either we need to collectively adapt (more easily said than done), or we need a technical or legal solution. Legal solutions take the format of restrictions on speech, which nobody wants to promulgate, technical solutions will be worked around. So - it's up to us to try to be better, to try to be moderate, to try not to get pissed off. Maybe the solution is pharmaceutical. Maybe we need Huxley's soma. I don't see how you can change human nature quickly enough otherwise.
- boot82050 10y agoI think usa is going for civil war like this. Violence spiral that will get worse. Remember what the last civil war was about? Also media censorship will contribute to the distrust. BBC yesterday had much better coverage of the situation than fox and cnn combined.
- venomsnake 10y agoCivil War will be possible only if low boiling. Lots and lots of domestic terrorism. There are no groups even united that could stand up to the Federal government. And the USG is strong enough to subdue any two groups that decide to war with each other.
- boot82050 10y agoWell i think it will look a bit different in modern times, more like a peer to peer structure, without one point of failure Like you see with terrorist groups, small autonomous groups. A war that you cannot win as a government (irak, afganistan etc..)because there is no single fronline, the war is all over the place.
- eru 10y agoTerrorist groups are not very effective. See https://www.gwern.net/Terrorism%20is%20not%20about%20Terror https://www.gwern.net/Terrorism%20is%20not%20about%20Terror and https://www.gwern.net/Terrorism%20is%20not%20Effective https://www.gwern.net/Terrorism%20is%20not%20Effective
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- Ftuuky 10y agoI bet nothing is going to happen to the policemen involved in this scandal.
- maglavaitss 10y agoI really hate to state the obvious, but this shouldn't have happened in 2016 in a civilized country. The shooting that is. If the police took the phone, logged on FB, deleted the video, well ... that shouldn't happen in any year in any country. It's mind-boggling honestly.
- ionforce 10y agoWhy is it mind-boggling? The guilty will always want to cover their tracks.
- maglavaitss 10y agoI know, and I don't want to sound naive, but weren't they supposed to protect us? (not an US citizen)
- cmdrfred 10y agoIt depends who you define 'us' as. It has been empirically proven that that United States is not a democracy[0]. 'Us' is now corporate interests and for profit prisons. To further illustrate take a look at some of the talk about Donald Trump (and Bernie Sanders as well) for example, now let it be clear I don't support the man but one of the major criticisms is that he is a populist. You hear it time and time again on CNN, FOX News, etc. How is that a criticism in a democracy? Shouldn't all politicians be populists? At least ones that want to be elected anyway. [0]http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746 http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746
- 15charlimit 10y agoIn a perfect world? Sure. In the real world? Ahahaha! Law Enforcement (in the USA at least) has no requirement to act to prevent or interfere in an actively occurring crime. Their role, strictly speaking, is cleaning up the mess after a crime has happened. They investigate, and, ideally, capture those responsible, after the fact. A cop has no legal requirement to help you if you are actively being attacked. Let that sink in for a minute. This is one reason that many law-abiding citizens make the (rational) choice to conceal-carry a firearm for personal protection. But you won't hear about that from the mass media because it's not the agenda they want to push.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- JulianMorrison 10y agoACAB.
- _98fj 10y agoAren't these events statistically likely in a way? 1. Some white people are afraid of black people. (the other way probably too) 2. Most people are very afraid of other people carrying guns. 3. Most people are afraid of some form of resistance when they challenge/approach somebody. Add it up. It's likely that somewhere a white policeman approaches a black person who has, or could have a gun, and experiences fear. Before this is read as an excuse for the policeman, which it is not: Keep in mind that fear and anger, fight and flight are intertwined. Hatred can come from fear. Fear can come after hatred. One brain-areal is responsible for both emotions. The only efficient response to defuse these situations is to eliminate the "very afraid" above and disarm the population.
- Kristine1975 10y ago>and disarm the population And the police (see UK, where most police is unarmed).
- cel1ne 10y agoI'm not as sure about that, but probably yes. And make police a highly-recognised profession with top-pay, but also heavily scrutinised selection, entrance-tests and no allowed margin for error.
- eru 10y ago> [...] no allowed margin for error. Or rather, make sure that any human error doesn't impact people. But that's easier implemented in a technology company, with automated tests etc, than in the police. Yet still, eg putting a GoPro on every officer would help make mistakes in eg investigating allegations of police brutality less likely.
- JanezStupar 10y agoHere are some basic facts: Half of people killed by police are white. Blacks are 25%. Blacks are also disproportionally represented amongst violent offenders. One more interesting trivia - black and hispanic cops are more likely to shoot a black suspect than white cops. Black people are 13% of US population, yet black men (6% of US population) commit 50% of homicides in the US. Thus your assumptions are incorrect and thus your conclusions may also be incorrect. It appears that white people are more afraid of being called racist than being assaulted by a person of color. http://www.dailywire.com/news/7264/5-statistics-you-need-know-about-cops-killing-aaron-bandler http://www.dailywire.com/news/7264/5-statistics-you-need-kno... http://www.amren.com/news/2015/07/new-doj-statistics-on-race-and-violent-crime/ http://www.amren.com/news/2015/07/new-doj-statistics-on-race... http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/11/28/5-devastating-facts-black-black-crime/ http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/11/28/5-devasta...
- jacquesm 10y ago11 police officers shot during protest march about this shooting and another one: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/07/08/like-a-little-war-snipers-shoot-11-police-officers-during-dallas-protest-march-killing-five/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/07/0... This is really getting out of hand.
- Kristine1975 10y agoIt has been getting out of hand for quite a while now: https://www.reddit.com/r/GunsAreCool/comments/4qyfsx/here_are_your_june_2016_mass_shooting_figures/ https://www.reddit.com/r/GunsAreCool/comments/4qyfsx/here_ar... MASS SHOOTING CASUALTIES IN THE U.S. - JUNE 2016 52 verified mass shootings 104 people killed 226 people wounded These people were victims strictly of mass shootings. Not included are victims of shootings where three or fewer people were shot. On average, 91 Americans are killed and more than 200 injured with guns every day.
- jacquesm 10y agoYes, but this goes way beyond that. So, first we have the police shooting two people, now (during a protest against police violence triggered by those shootings) we have 11 police officers shot by snipers. It doesn't take a whole lot of imagination to see this spiral out of control into full scale riots. I don't recall anything like the killings of those police officers happening at a demonstration, we're talking organized targeted response here.
- DanBC 10y ago> So, first we have the police shooting two people, US police have shot and killed over 500 people this year. So far 58 officers died "in the line of duty". 26 of those died by gunfire. In 2015 130 officers died in line of duty, 39 of those died by gunfire. (I don't know how many of these were killed by other officers).
- pc86 10y ago
- RickS 10y agoFrom a technical/operations perspective: That the police used her phone to delete it via vanilla facebook app is 100% plausible, but what's far more implausible is whatever mechanism was used to restore it. What are the options? Facebook allows you to undelete a video an hour later? Not to my knowledge. Is there another automated/normal way for a video to undelete an hour later, especially with a modified content setting? Is there an option that means something other than "someone on facebook staff saw that it was deleted and explicitly restored it without instruction from the user"?
- Illniyar 10y agoIf it was viral, maybe someone saved it before it was deleted and sent it to her to reupload?
- RickS 10y agoThat's a good point. It's not clear yet if it's THE original video (same content ID, old comments/likes, etc)
- craigvn 10y agoWhat you can do and Facebook engineers can do are unrelated.
- DougWebb 10y agoTo handle the huge amount of media it handles, Facebook has a content distribution network that stores many copies of the media in many places. When you upload it goes to an initial storage location, and when you view it the server you're talking to will fetch a copy if it doesn't already have it. (I don't work at Facebook, but this is a typical large-scale caching system.) When you delete a posting, nothing actually gets deleted, at least not right away. A flag is set which tells the system not to display the post anymore. The caches of the media files eventually expire and they get deleted. The initial storage location will probably stay until the posting is really deleted. That could be forever, not for any nefarious reasons but because of cross-referencing between database records. Your posting has a unique id, and when someone likes it, or adds a comment to it, or shares it, the id is used to cross-reference their action/content with yours. If your post is deleted there would be dangling cross-refefences, and database systems usually don't like that. It's often better to leave the record in the database but flag it as "deleted" so it won't be displayed to anyone (except maybe admins and you.)
- JanezStupar 10y agoI have mixed feelings about the topic. Where I live, police are reasonable and populace is unarmed. On the other hand US is on of a few modern republics that hasn't produced a tyranny yet. And perhaps 2nd amendment may have something to do with that. Along with rest of the constitution.
- cel1ne 10y ago> On the other hand US is on of a few modern republics that hasn't produced a tyranny yet. What about most european countries?
- JanezStupar 10y agoThe history of Europe I learned is littered with tyrannical regimes throughout Europe.
- eru 10y agoYes, but less so the modern republics. (But that borders on True Scotsman argument.)
- venomsnake 10y agoHungary is moving in that direction, Poland too, Austria is mixed case and even the western Europe countries are not as hostile towards wanna be authoritarians as before.
- a_imho 10y agoThat is simply false, corruption and amassing political power is a thing, not that most people can do anything about it. Which is an elephant in the room very few want to address, exactly because it is a hard problem to tackle. It is interesting however, from here it seem one of the US presidential candidates is much more above the law than any leader in Europe, and no one bats an eye.
- rdlecler1 10y agoI assume that police officers don't go into an encounter intending to shoot someone so it's important to get at the root cause. Whether real or perceived, the police seem to be much more fearful of black males than other racial groups. If perceived, then I might expect black officers to have a lower incident rate as they may be less likely to feel threatened in a situation. If there is a real statistical threat (also very difficult to tease out and to avoid confounding variables) then this could be more difficult to address and ultimately this would come back to a cycle of institutionalized poverty and incarceration that breaks up families and sends people who have been hardened by jail back into the black community thereby introducing a culture of violence. Either way you cut it a history of racism is to blame. Officers clearly are fearing for their lives and view potential encounters with black males through a lense of negative intent, which is causing them to react more aggressively. Greater accountability and training will be critical but only if the culture of the police force changes. This could be very difficult as a lot of police officers may take these jobs exactly because they're attracted to the danger and violence (In Canada many of the bouncers I knew were on steroids only had high school educations and many wanted to be cops...).
- Cenk 10y ago>Finally, analysis of police shooting data as a function of county-level predictors suggests that racial bias in police shootings is most likely to emerge in police departments in larger metropolitan counties with low median incomes and a sizable portion of black residents, especially when there is high financial inequality in that county. There is no relationship between county-level racial bias in police shootings and crime rates (even race-specific crime rates), meaning that the racial bias observed in police shootings in this data set is not explainable as a response to local-level crime rates. http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0141854 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....
- Unklejoe 10y ago[ Finally, analysis of police shooting data as a function of county-level predictors suggests that racial bias in police shootings is most likely to emerge in police departments in larger metropolitan counties with low median incomes and a sizable portion of black residents ... ] That's a lot to go through this early in the morning, so forgive me if this has been covered already, but did they analyze the risk of police officers being attacked/killed by the particular race that there's a (police shooting) bias against compared to other races in those counties? I'm curious if there's a correlation between "assault on police officers is X times more likely to occur by someone from race Y" and "police officers are Z times more likely to shoot someone of race Y". I'm not trying to imply anything (even though I know it sounds that way). I'm just curious.
- sickbeard 10y agoCops are not racist, they just have poor training. They are simply trained to shoot once they feel threatened; rather than making quick on the spot judgement on whether to shoot. The poor training removes any thought and makes it automatic. Black man + gun = shoot. There are many videos of this, including one where a cop at a gas station asked a black man to show his license and then proceeded to shoot him because he thought he had a gun. On the other hand shooting police officers only reinforces this kind of training. It's an explosive situation of mistrust, emotion and idiocy. Anger is such a useless emotion.
- chrisrhoden 10y agoAre you kidding me? "Black man + gun = shoot" is the very definition of racist when there are numerous cases of "white man + gun = deescalate", and especially when "black man = probably black man with gun = shoot"
- sickbeard 10y agoLook up the definition of racism sometime.
- chrisrhoden 10y agoI'm not sure how an ingrained belief that black men are more threatening or more violent or whatever than white men by default doesn't fit every definition perfectly.
- sangnoir 10y ago> Cops are not racist...Black man + gun = shoot Your statements are contradictory.
- saurik 10y agoWere this true, for what reason would Facebook (and specifically Mark Zuckerberg) lie about the reason? To avoid people thinking they have this capability?
- boot82050 10y agoI have been watching this thread today, and i am amazed by the speed this thread made it off the first page. It has the most reactions of any topic today 188 so far. Yet it is now on page 2....with topics still on the front page with way less comments.
- pc86 10y agoAFAIK comments play no role in the rank determination of an article. Not only that but this is older than every other article on the front page.
- sodafountan 10y agoThere's so many things that need to change in the United States for real change to be seen. We need to pay our officers more and have fewer of them, If you start to pay the good ones a respectable salary you'll get more accountability. We need to train our officers better, we should have an apprenticeship program that lasts at least five years where the apprentice officer rides around with a veteran UNARMED until he picks up every skill necessary to do a good job in real time, two years of community college and then a year as park police isn't cutting it. We need to reduce conflict on the streets, Philando Castile knew that his taillight was out, the problem is that in an impoverished and racially oppressed culture these small fixes become tough to handle when you have other bills to pay. The officer was either going to ticket him or give him a warning, neither of which would have done any good long term, and so you had unnecessary conflict. We need to change the laws so that cops aren't allowed to harass people over minor things like taillights/inspection stickers/small amounts of marijuana/jaywalking you name it. Black culture needs to change, stop selling CD's on the corner with a gun in your pocket and get a job that supports your kids, this "gangster" lifestyle is a result of rap music. The media needs to fined by the federal government for disproportionately reporting on content that is intended to get ratings and thus adds to the chaos and race baiting. How many people were killed in Chicago last week? Can you name them? The media outlets need to be fined to take away the incentive to over report on sensational news. We need something along the lines of a "Fair Media Coverage Act" that will completely destroy the financial incentive of media outlets that over report on sensational news, this would hopefully have the dual effect of (over the long term) slowing down the mass shootings that appear to be happening every other month. These rioters/mass shooters/cop killers are doing it for the 24/7 CNN news reel and the people tune in because the chaos is interesting and exciting, like a war movie with real life ramifications. Destroy the incentive. Just some ideas for real changes.
- milesokeefe 10y ago>this "gangster" lifestyle is a result of rap music Are you sure about that? That's a pretty outlandish thing to say. >The media outlets need to be fined to take away the incentive to over report on sensational news How would sensational news be distinguished from highly engaging/interesting news? You can already see this issue regarding the hate for clickbait, people will call any content with an enticing title clickbait regardless of the value of the content itself.
- daveloyall 10y agoIt's always painful to watch HN discuss race. The majority of us will consider crossing the street to avoid an oncoming $category_of_person. Maybe it's black men, maybe it's police, maybe it's beggars, maybe it's missionaries, maybe it is visibly agitated men of any color, etc. Maybe you feel like you've failed a bit every time it happens. Maybe your personality changes over time and at some point you taught yourself to abstain from such behavior. But, feelings are harder to change than behavior... When I pass my own problematic $category_of_person on the street (on the same side, now!), I spend a few seconds with no other topic on my mind than that person. It is because deep down, some part of me still sees that person as a threat, like a cliff or a fire or a bear. This is terrible, I know. Look, I'm trying to explain racism. Gimmie a minute... My mother taught me, before I was old enough to know better, to avoid some categories of people. To fear them, for my safety. I can, do, and will continue to overcome those crappy cards I was dealt. But don't put a badge on my chest and a gun on my hip and tell me to go talk to various categories of people in inherently heated situations and expect that evil that has been a part of me since before I can remember to never manifest itself in a statistically significant fashion. That's stupid. Police officer is not the job for me. Duh! See above! What I'm getting at is that my own combination of upbringing and later enlightenment is not uncommon. (Said differently: it's not uncommon for a person to be less racist than their parents were, right?) And therefor some meaningful percentage of good cops who don't consider themselves racist are, in fact, racist in a statistically significant way. Stress = gunfire. ...So... can we be done resisting the Black Lives Matter meme? Please? Y'all look ignorant when you do that. :) p.s. the fear when walking thing dissipates immediately if a conversation happens, etc. It's not that big of a deal, right? We'll all have a good laugh about it one day when I am caught off guard and mugged by a white girl... Anyway, I'm sorry. I try.