5 ms·

While I appreciate a criminal getting caught, these types of systems that incentives private citizens spying and reporting on one another are bothersome on many

While I appreciate a criminal getting caught, these types of systems that incentives private citizens spying and reporting on one another are bothersome on many levels.

s73v3r_ 9y ago
At the same time, we want whistleblowers, to expose wrongdoing by companies that otherwise would not be caught. And considering that many of them end up blacklisted by their industry, we kinda owe them something, so that they don't end up on the street due to doing the right thing.
turc1656 9y ago
Why does it bother you? Do you equate it with some sort subset of McCarthyism - i.e. turning the government loose on your neighbor, etc.? To me, it's more of a "see something, say something" deal. But the issue with that is that there is a substantial personal risk to doing so when one works in the industry and usually the employer they are blowing the whistle on. That means they run the risk of destroying their career (because most firms in their field will hot hire them after that)...all for "doing the right thing". That's why I think it's OK to have this incentived. There is substantial personal risk to them. It's not like reporting a suspicious bag at the airport.
- dmix 9y ago
  Completely agree, the reward is a counter balance to the real-world risks. It's not some idealistic regulatory system that bets on a finite group of agents to catch malicious actors in a rapidly changing systems with millions of events each day. Nor does it create massive inefficiencies in the system by forcing every company/employee/transaction to jump through arbitrary hoops in order to verify they are legit, designed to catch yesterdays criminals. Instead of paranoid dragnets it promotes enforcement on a case-by-case basis, sourced closer to problem and by the people who actually understand the problem.
CryptoPunk 9y ago
They were very common in East Germany: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/east-german-domestic-surveillance-went-far-beyond-the-stasi-a-1042883.html http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/east-german-dome... >East German Snitching Went Far Beyond the Stasi >Everyone knows about the Stasi and the extent to which it spied on the East German populace. But that was only a small part of the informing that went on. New research shows that snitching was vastly more common than previously thought. Conducting a token sale without getting approval from the SEC is exactly the kind of "economic crime" that the East German citizenry would be snitching on today if East Germany had survived to this day.
fastball 9y ago
This only becomes a problem if you have laws that are oppresive. And if you have laws that you deem oppressive, your goal should be to fix those laws -- whistleblower / "snitch" awards are only negative if the behavior being reported isn't "wrong".
CPLX 9y ago
These aren't examples of private citizens reporting on each other. This as an example of a member of an organization providing information on wrongdoing by that same organization, or a company pursuing claims against a company they do business with who is engaged in fraud. Those things are not at all the same.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

While I appreciate a criminal getting caught, these types of systems that incentives private citizens spying and reporting on one another are bothersome on many levels.

s73v3r_ 9y ago

At the same time, we want whistleblowers, to expose wrongdoing by companies that otherwise would not be caught. And considering that many of them end up blacklisted by their industry, we kinda owe them something, so that they don't end up on the street due to doing the right thing.

turc1656 9y ago

Why does it bother you? Do you equate it with some sort subset of McCarthyism - i.e. turning the government loose on your neighbor, etc.? To me, it's more of a "see something, say something" deal. But the issue with that is that there is a substantial personal risk to doing so when one works in the industry and usually the employer they are blowing the whistle on. That means they run the risk of destroying their career (because most firms in their field will hot hire them after that)...all for "doing the right thing". That's why I think it's OK to have this incentived. There is substantial personal risk to them. It's not like reporting a suspicious bag at the airport.

dmix 9y ago
Completely agree, the reward is a counter balance to the real-world risks. It's not some idealistic regulatory system that bets on a finite group of agents to catch malicious actors in a rapidly changing systems with millions of events each day. Nor does it create massive inefficiencies in the system by forcing every company/employee/transaction to jump through arbitrary hoops in order to verify they are legit, designed to catch yesterdays criminals. Instead of paranoid dragnets it promotes enforcement on a case-by-case basis, sourced closer to problem and by the people who actually understand the problem.

CryptoPunk 9y ago

They were very common in East Germany: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/east-german-domestic-surveillance-went-far-beyond-the-stasi-a-1042883.html http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/east-german-dome... >East German Snitching Went Far Beyond the Stasi >Everyone knows about the Stasi and the extent to which it spied on the East German populace. But that was only a small part of the informing that went on. New research shows that snitching was vastly more common than previously thought. Conducting a token sale without getting approval from the SEC is exactly the kind of "economic crime" that the East German citizenry would be snitching on today if East Germany had survived to this day.

fastball 9y ago

This only becomes a problem if you have laws that are oppresive. And if you have laws that you deem oppressive, your goal should be to fix those laws -- whistleblower / "snitch" awards are only negative if the behavior being reported isn't "wrong".

CPLX 9y ago

These aren't examples of private citizens reporting on each other. This as an example of a member of an organization providing information on wrongdoing by that same organization, or a company pursuing claims against a company they do business with who is engaged in fraud. Those things are not at all the same.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]