8 ms·

Amazon Ring is hiring editors to push local crime news to its users

142 points by otoolep 7y ago

oldjokes 7y ago
Anti-trust. Break them up.
jfk13 7y ago
As if pushing ever more news of "crime" (much of which may be inconsequential, entirely non-criminal trivia, judging by the kind of material mentioned in the article) at the public will somehow make our society better/happier/safer. Didn't Bowling for Columbine suggest that a key element in America's fear-driven and violent society, when compared to its northern neighbour, might be the extent to which US media already focuses on such reporting (if I remember right -- it's been a long time)? This sort of toxic, alarmist "news" is already poisoning our social fabric; so let's double down on it and focus even more on feeding people's fears. Great.
- jboy55 7y ago
  It could be that the desire is so great to have your fear justified that the quiet that a lack of reporting from your local Ring community is seen as a lack of quality. "My neighbour's kids are constantly being held hostage by sex slavery rings. My Ring feed just isn't reporting it!"
- booleandilemma 7y ago
  So if it bleeds it leads doesn’t apply in Canada?
- gumby 7y ago
  The whole point is revenue not making society better/happier/safer. There is no money in the latter.
- mtgx 7y ago
  More crimes news to keep people scared means bigger budgets for police/law enforcement=bigger gov contracts for Amazon.
- ranie93 7y ago
  Here's a relevant opinion from Newt Gingrich on the matter of perception of violence vs. actual trends https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnhJWusyj4I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnhJWusyj4I
  - rjf72 7y ago
    This, moreso, seems to emphasize how much partisanship has gripped everybody. For instance homelessness is substantially down across the US. [1] But of course certain areas, especially in California and New York, do not follow this trend. And so for people in these regions and especially in certain areas of them, homelessness is very much an issue, aggregate stats notwithstanding. Imagine having the same interview, except now have an advocate for focusing on homelessness as an issue and a journalist who keeps interjecting 'but homelessness across the country is down!' Now furthermore, have somebody go and insert laugh tracks when the homeless advocate speaks. People would react to it entirely differently even though it's the exact same logic, just with the issue being discussed swapped. I think this is mostly reflective of partisanship, as it emphasizes that the logic itself is not what people are mocking. Increasingly often we mock or support logic based not on the soundness of said logic, but whether it affirms or challenges our views and values. --- But more on topic I completely agree that the media holds some responsibility (I imagine many people even outside of New York and California believe that homelessness is on the rise, contrary to the data) but there's also the very real issue that aggregate stats do not necessarily represent local conditions. There are also a couple of other factors to consider. People are much more influenced by relatively recent changes rather than changes that happened decades ago. For instance the violent crime rate has been increasing recently. That it's far below the levels of the 90s is probably not much comfort for those in areas where it's increasing. Another issue that increases in population can see a rate decrease, but the number of incidents increase or remain stable. If the population increases 10% and the murder rate declines 1% you'd see an increase in the number of murders happening. That it's at a lower per capita rate is, once again, probably not very comforting to those in the area. [1] - https://endhomelessness.org/homelessness-in-america/homelessness-statistics/state-of-homelessness-report/ https://endhomelessness.org/homelessness-in-america/homeless...
- tomaskafka 7y ago
  Non-scared people buy less. That's all what number optimizers need to know.
- mises 7y ago
  It's also possibly the reason why we have had 3 shootings in the past 2 days. It's like copycat suicide. However, America has a free press. This is a great attribute of hers. If that is changed, we take a tremendous risk. Not something easy to stop.
- mc32 7y ago
  I think in this case we don’t yet know the consequences: - It hasn’t ramped up - They’re still haven’t fully integrated with LEOs (people must report the traditional way, but this could change) So here are some obvious observations: it increases surveillance (people can be followed across these networks via facial recognition). If more people who commit crime are reported and LEOs become more effective (better evidence/leads/suspects) then it’s possible this could put down pressure on burglaries and other street crime. Maybe it will depend on neighborhood, composition, attitudes, engagement, etc. Begrudgingly I find it useful knowing to look out for bands of roving thieves, meter maids, anti social behavior, etc. Do I like where it’s going? It has good and it has bad. No verdict yet.
- lokidokiro 7y ago
  Here's a Dilbert comic that you probably won't enjoy, but the rest of us who just read this comment will: https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/75823311/null https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/75823311/null
mv4 7y ago
They are already relying heavily on local police force to help them sell. Now this.
inflatableDodo 7y ago
Just release a robot teddybear that threatens you if you try and leave the house already.
vorpalhex 7y ago
This is an entirely inflammatory and baseless article. Yes, you should care a bit about local crime. If someone in your neighborhood is stealing hubcabs, maybe it's a good idea to park in the garage. Likewise, if there's a spat of minor vehicle burglaries, it's probably wise to make sure your vehicle is locked. Yeah, is some idiot going to theorize that the salesman who ignored their no soliciting sign a secret islamist infiltrator who is casing their house? Probably. That doesn't undo the value of the other things because silly people exist. On the other hand, when there are bad things happening in your neighborhood like serious break-ins or joggers keep getting kidnapped, then you know, harass your local police department to step up patrols and act accordingly. Crime as a whole lowering doesn't mean crime in your neighborhood isn't happening. Yes the world is getting more peaceful as a whole, but yes, you can still be mugged and killed.
- bb2018 7y ago
  My house was broken into last year. I wish I had Ring then. We never found any leads and police were unable to do anything. Since then I have gotten Ring and definitely feel more secure. We even found footage of a man stealing our mail and were able to confirm with Ring app footage from a neighbor that the man stealing the mail was the same stealing their mail.
  - vageli 7y ago
    > My house was broken into last year. I wish I had Ring then. We never found any leads and police were unable to do anything. > Since then I have gotten Ring and definitely feel more secure. We even found footage of a man stealing our mail and were able to confirm with Ring app footage from a neighbor that the man stealing the mail was the same stealing their mail. In that case was, the culprit ever apprehended?
    - jonathankoren 7y ago
      As a victim of package theft, I’m going to say, no. Even with a picture of a car, and a decent photo of a face, there’s not much that can be done. You need a license plate. There’s no way to identify these people.
michaelbuckbee 7y ago
A neighbor recently got a Ring out of some security concerns (partner got deployed for a year and they have two young kids). However, I've think it's made things worse in some ways: - Every potential interaction is viewed with suspicion - Everybody who walks up to the door prompts an interruption wherever you are (on your smartphone) The local neighborhood sharing aspects of Ring strongly remind me of NextDoor, whose suspicion raising and general uselessness can pretty much be summed up in this tweet: https://twitter.com/bestofnextdoor/status/1122320889637298177 https://twitter.com/bestofnextdoor/status/112232088963729817...
- burger_moon 7y ago
  I have a few coworkers who recently got Ring devices. Now I see them constantly checking their phones and watching the security footage. The level of paranoia this device creates is pretty remarkable. These are rich tech workers living in low crime neighborhoods too. Having a security camera isn't a bad idea at all, but one that gets you to check it constantly like it's instagram can't be healthy.
  - slimsag 7y ago
    As a counterpoint, I live in Arizona (hardly rich tech workers living in my neighborhood, excluding me). Tons of people here have them and almost every instance is either just a delivery person OR literally someone trying to steal crap from their porch etc.
    - CharlesColeman 7y ago
      > OR literally someone trying to steal crap from their porch etc. To significantly reduce the chance of package theft, I got a simple outdoor cabinet (no lock) and put up a sign on my door asking deliverymen to place packages in it. They do it 95% of the time now, so it's very difficult for a potential package thief to know if there's anything to steal at my door. Specifically, I got one of these and spray-painted it to match my house: https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/products/storage-furniture/outdoor-organising/josef-cabinet-in-outdoor-dark-grey-art-00168990/ https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/products/storage-furniture/outdoo...
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
opportune 7y ago
Great, now old people are going to get even more paranoid about the ever-decreasing crime rates
whoisjuan 7y ago
The "selling fear" narrative seems pretty far fetched and cherry picked. Crime happens regardless of your opinions. Reporting it might actually make a difference since it will at least help people be aware of their area safety and attempt some organized effort to address it. Yes, the way to address it might be buying security devices and yes, Amazon could profit from this (but not necessarily). Either way, crime will happen regardless and this has nothing to do with Amazon or Ring. It's not like they are actually putting criminals in the streets or making up stories about crime to boost sales. The article make it almost sound like that. The dichotomy here is whether you want to know if crime is happening around you or you want to be oblivious about it for whatever reason or belief. That sounds more like a choice, not like an imposition. If you're going to demonize reporting facts or news about crimes, and you are going to raise concerns about the potential conflicts of interest between reporting and profits, you should start first with a sound judgement of journalism as a whole. As far as I know most newspapers and media outlets are for-profit businesses, so their motivations might be as obscure. And this includes, The Atlantic, the publisher of this very article. And that actually reminds of a wise spanish saying that seems like a good fit for this journalistic piece: "El ladrón juzga por su condición" ... That means "The thief judges by his condition"...
- danso 7y ago
  Most critics of journalists, and many journalists themselves, would agree with you that profit-motive is a main factor in deciding (consciously and unconsciously) what gets covered as news. And stories about crime have long been clickbait before "clicks" were a thing, e.g. the aphorism, "if it bleeds, it leads". Here's one interesting writeup about the "Murder of the Century" in 1897, which is said to have sparked a new era of tabloid reporting: https://archives.cjr.org/review/headless_body_in_newspaper_war.php https://archives.cjr.org/review/headless_body_in_newspaper_w...
vermontdevil 7y ago
I live in a very affluent and safe area in Central Indiana. Yet my Next Door and FB neighborhood group has lot of posts from people living in fear of “rising crime” due to the constant stream of crime reporting from various sources. I’m fine with being “aware” of what’s happening but there needs to be sensible curation of the info.
- badwolf 7y ago
  Nextdoor is amazing for that! Every time a car backfires there are multiple posts about "Gunshots in the area!?" Helicopter flying overhead? be sure to follow the multiple "Police choppers looking for a perp in our neighborhood!" posts. People revel in fearmongering :(
  - jfk13 7y ago
    And then wonder why the society is so trigger-happy?
    - Jesus_Jones 7y ago
      The best summary of next door is "twitter for old people".
  - astrodust 7y ago
    You lead a boring, event-free life and suddenly everything out of the ordinary becomes an alarming anomaly.
- theNJR 7y ago
  Los Angeles recently got the Citizen App. I was excited at first to be better informed. Then I realized... perhaps it's better I don't get a notification every time something happens within a 10 block radius. The world around me started to seem more dangerous, and that isn't helping anyone.
  - mk4p 7y ago
    I hear that (I'm in Brooklyn), but there have also been cases where something happened nearby that would have changed my route (if I was about to go somewhere). Or at work, there are alerts about things happening in Grand Central Station, which would also change my plans (if it happened when I was about to leave). I guess it's never actually caused me to change plans, but I still think it's pretty valuable. Actually, I did notify relatives when there was a dude with a gun walking around their neighborhood. It's really astounding how much craziness can happen right under your nose.
danvoell 7y ago
Please tell me this is fake news. I turned off Ring notifications because they were, in fact, making me fear my neighborhood. I try to be safe in my neighborhood. These notifications don't change that. They just make me scared.
- jfk13 7y ago
  It's "Job ID: 836421 | Amazon.com Services, Inc.", if you want to pursue the opportunity. Doesn't mention anything about being posted on April 1st... https://www.amazon.jobs/en/jobs/836421/managing-editor-news https://www.amazon.jobs/en/jobs/836421/managing-editor-news
kwillets 7y ago
This must be censored to protect the public from antisocial thoughts.
commonsense1234 7y ago
nextdoor already does a great job at that. and in realtime.
verisimilitudes 7y ago
This article seems rather inflammatory and focuses on what other news stations do too much for an article centred around an Amazon product, I think. I'm of the opinion that local crime reporting an neighbourhood watches and whatnot should be handled by the actual locals, instead of a giant corporation, but this article doesn't seem to support this view, either. I'm left to wonder what this article would suggest, because it seems to be suggesting doing nothing is better than locals handling it.
oh_sigh 7y ago
I see ads on my neighborhood nextdoor literally every 4th story about how Ring stopped a robbery in <YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD HERE>
habosa 7y ago
I hate these things and all the things that go with them (NextDoor, etc). They promote a world where we're all locked in our boxes peeking through the blinds at each other and checking Twitter to see what's wrong. When we don't trust each other, especially the people in our local community, we move towards a slightly worse world. This is part of the same phenomenon frequently discussed on Hacker News where children are not allowed to play outside freely anymore. We're all convinced the world is full of Bad People who need stopping.
- thebigspacefuck 7y ago
  Nextdoor depends on where you live and who you live near. I've learned a lot about my city and local politics from my neighbors. It's a great place to get recommendations for local contractors. I live with a lot of nice people around and I appreciate getting the exposure to that. There are definitely stories about needle sightings, break-ins, and package thefts, but I've found needles at the park and I've even had police come to my door asking about a dead body found nearby in a tarp. It's not like staying off of Nextdoor really stops my exposure to bad things, but I do get to learn more about my neighbors and keep in touch with what's going on in the 'hood.
  - whenchamenia 7y ago
    Your local forums are better. If you lack them, they are easy to setup and can become a small business.
    - thebigspacefuck 7y ago
      Can you point me to an example of a successful local forum? There's Craigslist for buying/selling items and the local subreddit for discussions, but both of those encompass the wider area of the city as opposed to the neighborhood.
danso 7y ago
Back in the earlier days of the Internet, one of my first web apps I created as a reporter was a local crime map (inspired by, but much less sophisticated than Adrian Holovaty's chicagocrime.org [0]). This involved contacting each police department individually and asking them to email me the data. A couple of departments were happy, because they didn't want to pay to develop their own online map. Others (small jurisdictions) didn't have the IT process in place. But there were also large departments that definitely had a data process, but declined to participate (and I didn't really have the capacity to start a legal fight for it, since this was a side project, and I was the sole developer). What I had been told unofficially, even by departments that did agree to send data, was that publicizing the data was perceived to have possible negative consequences -- such as scaring off potential home buyers (this was during the housing bubble). My point is that crime has always been a big draw for local news organizations, and this includes data applications like crime maps. But even ignoring how it might distort public perception of crime, there was always a pretty implicit downside to a local publisher in making their own community look like a shithole. Not just the negative feelings, but the price of real estate (and those real estate advertisers). From what I can tell, Ring's proposed news service is just for Ring customers? That is, a non-Ring user (or someone not in the local geofenced area) might not get to see the crime news for a given area, in the same way that any Web user could visit a public crime mapper like chicagocrime.org. So the Ring news service gets all the upside of the attention that crime news draws without the same downsides that would usually be part of a publisher's news equation. This, added to Ring's already inherent appeal to customers paranoid about local crime, might lead to problematic incentives in their crime coverage. [0] http://www.holovaty.com/writing/chicagocrime.org-tribute/ http://www.holovaty.com/writing/chicagocrime.org-tribute/
swamp40 7y ago
It starts to get good halfway down: I downloaded Neighbors—you can do so without owning a Ring doorbell—and plugged in my address in boring Arlington, Massachusetts, a city of 45,000 that recorded zero murders and only seven robberies last year. It decided I needed to know that someone in the uniform of a local lawn-care service had recently knocked on someone’s door instead of using the doorbell and, when no one answered, left. Also, there was a building fire two towns away, a couple of days ago. Also, two young people, one male, one female, wearing identical T-shirts and lanyards with name badges, carrying clipboards—likely trying to get signatures for some cause or another—rang a doorbell and then walked away when no one answered. “Anyone know who they are?” the post from a Neighbors user asked, perhaps concerned about Islamic State infiltration of the Boston suburbs. “Call the police,” one helpful commenter replied.
RickJWagner 7y ago
Crime reporting is big business. Besides 'Ring', look at the opportunistic hyping of fake hate crimes, ala Jussie Smollett. The desired outcome is the same: Injecting fear into people, causing them to buy something or vote a specific way. It's despicable. It pits people against each other.
peterwwillis 7y ago
They probably found that many people lose interest in their Ring if they don't see a purpose for it, so they're manufacturing a point. The more your Ring tells you about crime, the more afraid you'll be, and want your Ring around to keep you informed about crime.
sandwich9 7y ago
There is a new podcast called Running from Cops. It is about the TV show COPS (the "bad boys, bad boys, what you going to do" theme show) It goes in to how the show make viewers think there is a lot more crime going on than there actually is. The show producers profit off this https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/missing-richard-simmons/running-from-cops-headlong-season-3 https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/missing-richard-simmons/run...
marktangotango 7y ago
It’s propaganda 101, destabilize regimes and states by instilling fear in the population and mistrust of institutions. The fact it’s also profitable is a happy coincidence. At the very least, the perception of rampant crime is a problem for local politicians; they’re seen as incompetent and not doing their jobs. The worst? See fascists regimes of ww2. I own and pay a monthly monitoring fee for a home security system, not because I value the things in my house, but out fear some nut job would try to harm my family. This is not rational, the odds are near zero, and it wouldn’t stop a determined attacker anyway, but it is a deterrent. And I don’t want to kill anyone, even if it is often “justified” (castle doctrine). There’s definitly money in fear.
anon4lol 7y ago
I have a Ring doorbell camera and a camera in our garage, mostly to see if the garage door is closed. The "crime alerts" are annoying, so I've basically turned off all the notifications. Looks like amazon has figured out that crime sells security equipment. We had a problem with teenagers were ringing our doorbell and screaming late at night around 1 a.m. It became a nightly ordeal, and sometimes several times a night. Sometimes they would kick the door and run away. Surprisingly, some of them were teenage girls. Since my wife is pregnant, I knew this had to stop. There is no way I wanted to deal with this with a newborn infant. The comments on NextDoor are funny to me because it is filled with wingnuts and busy bodies. When I asked for advice on how to handle this situation, I was shouted down by social justice warriors who told me not to call the police because it was racist. I said fine, I'll just tell the registered sex offender who was recently released from prison (for abducting and raping a young woman) that there are young women harassing us, oh and by the way, all are neighbors are conditioned to ignore their screams and we won't call the police... because it is racist. Oddly enough, none of the social justice warriors replied to say I shouldn't. I called the police and posted the videos on YouTube and sent them the link. They found them and calmly talked to them. Problem solved.
neilv 7y ago
If you want just the personally important hyperlocal crime news, your local police department might have an alerts email list that they use judiciously. Cambridge, Massaschusetts, USA, does this well. The advisories seem to be prompted by exceptional events/situations that people should know about (e.g., rash of B&E following a pattern in a particular neighborhood, or a rare shooting). If your local PD doesn't do this, consider asking them. Email list is vastly better than pushing you to follow them on Twitter or Facebook. A city-wide genuine news outlet that cherry-picks important things from the police crime log, and follows up with additional reporting, is also good. And some awareness of the gist of it is important as a voting citizen and community member (e.g., you should be aware that, in some neighborhoods of your city, people might have justifiable fears of being hit by stray bullets, or how close to home the opiod epidemic, and read some of the journalism that personalizes ordinary people who are killed). However, following every little hyperlocal thing exhaustively, or reading/watching for sensationalism/entertainment doesn't sound like a good idea, or at least is a huge time sink. Also, the reader/community comments can be spirit-crushing. Separately, journalism is best done without any potential conflicts of interest. Most outlets I can think of have ownership that appears questionable (e.g., a big company/person with an interest in influencing public perception, or with other business before the politicians on which it's supposed to be a Fourth Estate check), but that kind of ownership shouldn't be the norm, and we should try to move away from that.

142 points by otoolep 7y ago

Anti-trust. Break them up.

As if pushing ever more news of "crime" (much of which may be inconsequential, entirely non-criminal trivia, judging by the kind of material mentioned in the article) at the public will somehow make our society better/happier/safer. Didn't Bowling for Columbine suggest that a key element in America's fear-driven and violent society, when compared to its northern neighbour, might be the extent to which US media already focuses on such reporting (if I remember right -- it's been a long time)? This sort of toxic, alarmist "news" is already poisoning our social fabric; so let's double down on it and focus even more on feeding people's fears. Great.

jboy55 7y ago
It could be that the desire is so great to have your fear justified that the quiet that a lack of reporting from your local Ring community is seen as a lack of quality. "My neighbour's kids are constantly being held hostage by sex slavery rings. My Ring feed just isn't reporting it!"
booleandilemma 7y ago
So if it bleeds it leads doesn’t apply in Canada?
gumby 7y ago
The whole point is revenue not making society better/happier/safer. There is no money in the latter.
mtgx 7y ago
More crimes news to keep people scared means bigger budgets for police/law enforcement=bigger gov contracts for Amazon.
ranie93 7y ago
Here's a relevant opinion from Newt Gingrich on the matter of perception of violence vs. actual trends https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnhJWusyj4I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnhJWusyj4I
- rjf72 7y ago
  This, moreso, seems to emphasize how much partisanship has gripped everybody. For instance homelessness is substantially down across the US. [1] But of course certain areas, especially in California and New York, do not follow this trend. And so for people in these regions and especially in certain areas of them, homelessness is very much an issue, aggregate stats notwithstanding. Imagine having the same interview, except now have an advocate for focusing on homelessness as an issue and a journalist who keeps interjecting 'but homelessness across the country is down!' Now furthermore, have somebody go and insert laugh tracks when the homeless advocate speaks. People would react to it entirely differently even though it's the exact same logic, just with the issue being discussed swapped. I think this is mostly reflective of partisanship, as it emphasizes that the logic itself is not what people are mocking. Increasingly often we mock or support logic based not on the soundness of said logic, but whether it affirms or challenges our views and values. --- But more on topic I completely agree that the media holds some responsibility (I imagine many people even outside of New York and California believe that homelessness is on the rise, contrary to the data) but there's also the very real issue that aggregate stats do not necessarily represent local conditions. There are also a couple of other factors to consider. People are much more influenced by relatively recent changes rather than changes that happened decades ago. For instance the violent crime rate has been increasing recently. That it's far below the levels of the 90s is probably not much comfort for those in areas where it's increasing. Another issue that increases in population can see a rate decrease, but the number of incidents increase or remain stable. If the population increases 10% and the murder rate declines 1% you'd see an increase in the number of murders happening. That it's at a lower per capita rate is, once again, probably not very comforting to those in the area. [1] - https://endhomelessness.org/homelessness-in-america/homelessness-statistics/state-of-homelessness-report/ https://endhomelessness.org/homelessness-in-america/homeless...
tomaskafka 7y ago
Non-scared people buy less. That's all what number optimizers need to know.
mises 7y ago
It's also possibly the reason why we have had 3 shootings in the past 2 days. It's like copycat suicide. However, America has a free press. This is a great attribute of hers. If that is changed, we take a tremendous risk. Not something easy to stop.
mc32 7y ago
I think in this case we don’t yet know the consequences: - It hasn’t ramped up - They’re still haven’t fully integrated with LEOs (people must report the traditional way, but this could change) So here are some obvious observations: it increases surveillance (people can be followed across these networks via facial recognition). If more people who commit crime are reported and LEOs become more effective (better evidence/leads/suspects) then it’s possible this could put down pressure on burglaries and other street crime. Maybe it will depend on neighborhood, composition, attitudes, engagement, etc. Begrudgingly I find it useful knowing to look out for bands of roving thieves, meter maids, anti social behavior, etc. Do I like where it’s going? It has good and it has bad. No verdict yet.
lokidokiro 7y ago
Here's a Dilbert comic that you probably won't enjoy, but the rest of us who just read this comment will: https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/75823311/null https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/75823311/null

mv4 7y ago

They are already relying heavily on local police force to help them sell. Now this.

inflatableDodo 7y ago

Just release a robot teddybear that threatens you if you try and leave the house already.

vorpalhex 7y ago

This is an entirely inflammatory and baseless article. Yes, you should care a bit about local crime. If someone in your neighborhood is stealing hubcabs, maybe it's a good idea to park in the garage. Likewise, if there's a spat of minor vehicle burglaries, it's probably wise to make sure your vehicle is locked. Yeah, is some idiot going to theorize that the salesman who ignored their no soliciting sign a secret islamist infiltrator who is casing their house? Probably. That doesn't undo the value of the other things because silly people exist. On the other hand, when there are bad things happening in your neighborhood like serious break-ins or joggers keep getting kidnapped, then you know, harass your local police department to step up patrols and act accordingly. Crime as a whole lowering doesn't mean crime in your neighborhood isn't happening. Yes the world is getting more peaceful as a whole, but yes, you can still be mugged and killed.

bb2018 7y ago
My house was broken into last year. I wish I had Ring then. We never found any leads and police were unable to do anything. Since then I have gotten Ring and definitely feel more secure. We even found footage of a man stealing our mail and were able to confirm with Ring app footage from a neighbor that the man stealing the mail was the same stealing their mail.
- vageli 7y ago
  > My house was broken into last year. I wish I had Ring then. We never found any leads and police were unable to do anything. > Since then I have gotten Ring and definitely feel more secure. We even found footage of a man stealing our mail and were able to confirm with Ring app footage from a neighbor that the man stealing the mail was the same stealing their mail. In that case was, the culprit ever apprehended?
  - jonathankoren 7y ago
    As a victim of package theft, I’m going to say, no. Even with a picture of a car, and a decent photo of a face, there’s not much that can be done. You need a license plate. There’s no way to identify these people.

michaelbuckbee 7y ago

A neighbor recently got a Ring out of some security concerns (partner got deployed for a year and they have two young kids). However, I've think it's made things worse in some ways: - Every potential interaction is viewed with suspicion - Everybody who walks up to the door prompts an interruption wherever you are (on your smartphone) The local neighborhood sharing aspects of Ring strongly remind me of NextDoor, whose suspicion raising and general uselessness can pretty much be summed up in this tweet: https://twitter.com/bestofnextdoor/status/1122320889637298177 https://twitter.com/bestofnextdoor/status/112232088963729817...

burger_moon 7y ago
I have a few coworkers who recently got Ring devices. Now I see them constantly checking their phones and watching the security footage. The level of paranoia this device creates is pretty remarkable. These are rich tech workers living in low crime neighborhoods too. Having a security camera isn't a bad idea at all, but one that gets you to check it constantly like it's instagram can't be healthy.
- slimsag 7y ago
  As a counterpoint, I live in Arizona (hardly rich tech workers living in my neighborhood, excluding me). Tons of people here have them and almost every instance is either just a delivery person OR literally someone trying to steal crap from their porch etc.
  - CharlesColeman 7y ago
    > OR literally someone trying to steal crap from their porch etc. To significantly reduce the chance of package theft, I got a simple outdoor cabinet (no lock) and put up a sign on my door asking deliverymen to place packages in it. They do it 95% of the time now, so it's very difficult for a potential package thief to know if there's anything to steal at my door. Specifically, I got one of these and spray-painted it to match my house: https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/products/storage-furniture/outdoor-organising/josef-cabinet-in-outdoor-dark-grey-art-00168990/ https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/products/storage-furniture/outdoo...

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

opportune 7y ago

Great, now old people are going to get even more paranoid about the ever-decreasing crime rates

whoisjuan 7y ago

The "selling fear" narrative seems pretty far fetched and cherry picked. Crime happens regardless of your opinions. Reporting it might actually make a difference since it will at least help people be aware of their area safety and attempt some organized effort to address it. Yes, the way to address it might be buying security devices and yes, Amazon could profit from this (but not necessarily). Either way, crime will happen regardless and this has nothing to do with Amazon or Ring. It's not like they are actually putting criminals in the streets or making up stories about crime to boost sales. The article make it almost sound like that. The dichotomy here is whether you want to know if crime is happening around you or you want to be oblivious about it for whatever reason or belief. That sounds more like a choice, not like an imposition. If you're going to demonize reporting facts or news about crimes, and you are going to raise concerns about the potential conflicts of interest between reporting and profits, you should start first with a sound judgement of journalism as a whole. As far as I know most newspapers and media outlets are for-profit businesses, so their motivations might be as obscure. And this includes, The Atlantic, the publisher of this very article. And that actually reminds of a wise spanish saying that seems like a good fit for this journalistic piece: "El ladrón juzga por su condición" ... That means "The thief judges by his condition"...

danso 7y ago
Most critics of journalists, and many journalists themselves, would agree with you that profit-motive is a main factor in deciding (consciously and unconsciously) what gets covered as news. And stories about crime have long been clickbait before "clicks" were a thing, e.g. the aphorism, "if it bleeds, it leads". Here's one interesting writeup about the "Murder of the Century" in 1897, which is said to have sparked a new era of tabloid reporting: https://archives.cjr.org/review/headless_body_in_newspaper_war.php https://archives.cjr.org/review/headless_body_in_newspaper_w...

vermontdevil 7y ago

I live in a very affluent and safe area in Central Indiana. Yet my Next Door and FB neighborhood group has lot of posts from people living in fear of “rising crime” due to the constant stream of crime reporting from various sources. I’m fine with being “aware” of what’s happening but there needs to be sensible curation of the info.

badwolf 7y ago
Nextdoor is amazing for that! Every time a car backfires there are multiple posts about "Gunshots in the area!?" Helicopter flying overhead? be sure to follow the multiple "Police choppers looking for a perp in our neighborhood!" posts. People revel in fearmongering :(
- jfk13 7y ago
  And then wonder why the society is so trigger-happy?
  - Jesus_Jones 7y ago
    The best summary of next door is "twitter for old people".
- astrodust 7y ago
  You lead a boring, event-free life and suddenly everything out of the ordinary becomes an alarming anomaly.
theNJR 7y ago
Los Angeles recently got the Citizen App. I was excited at first to be better informed. Then I realized... perhaps it's better I don't get a notification every time something happens within a 10 block radius. The world around me started to seem more dangerous, and that isn't helping anyone.
- mk4p 7y ago
  I hear that (I'm in Brooklyn), but there have also been cases where something happened nearby that would have changed my route (if I was about to go somewhere). Or at work, there are alerts about things happening in Grand Central Station, which would also change my plans (if it happened when I was about to leave). I guess it's never actually caused me to change plans, but I still think it's pretty valuable. Actually, I did notify relatives when there was a dude with a gun walking around their neighborhood. It's really astounding how much craziness can happen right under your nose.

danvoell 7y ago

Please tell me this is fake news. I turned off Ring notifications because they were, in fact, making me fear my neighborhood. I try to be safe in my neighborhood. These notifications don't change that. They just make me scared.

jfk13 7y ago
It's "Job ID: 836421 | Amazon.com Services, Inc.", if you want to pursue the opportunity. Doesn't mention anything about being posted on April 1st... https://www.amazon.jobs/en/jobs/836421/managing-editor-news https://www.amazon.jobs/en/jobs/836421/managing-editor-news

kwillets 7y ago

This must be censored to protect the public from antisocial thoughts.

commonsense1234 7y ago

nextdoor already does a great job at that. and in realtime.

verisimilitudes 7y ago

This article seems rather inflammatory and focuses on what other news stations do too much for an article centred around an Amazon product, I think. I'm of the opinion that local crime reporting an neighbourhood watches and whatnot should be handled by the actual locals, instead of a giant corporation, but this article doesn't seem to support this view, either. I'm left to wonder what this article would suggest, because it seems to be suggesting doing nothing is better than locals handling it.

oh_sigh 7y ago

I see ads on my neighborhood nextdoor literally every 4th story about how Ring stopped a robbery in <YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD HERE>

habosa 7y ago

I hate these things and all the things that go with them (NextDoor, etc). They promote a world where we're all locked in our boxes peeking through the blinds at each other and checking Twitter to see what's wrong. When we don't trust each other, especially the people in our local community, we move towards a slightly worse world. This is part of the same phenomenon frequently discussed on Hacker News where children are not allowed to play outside freely anymore. We're all convinced the world is full of Bad People who need stopping.

thebigspacefuck 7y ago
Nextdoor depends on where you live and who you live near. I've learned a lot about my city and local politics from my neighbors. It's a great place to get recommendations for local contractors. I live with a lot of nice people around and I appreciate getting the exposure to that. There are definitely stories about needle sightings, break-ins, and package thefts, but I've found needles at the park and I've even had police come to my door asking about a dead body found nearby in a tarp. It's not like staying off of Nextdoor really stops my exposure to bad things, but I do get to learn more about my neighbors and keep in touch with what's going on in the 'hood.
- whenchamenia 7y ago
  Your local forums are better. If you lack them, they are easy to setup and can become a small business.
  - thebigspacefuck 7y ago
    Can you point me to an example of a successful local forum? There's Craigslist for buying/selling items and the local subreddit for discussions, but both of those encompass the wider area of the city as opposed to the neighborhood.

danso 7y ago

Back in the earlier days of the Internet, one of my first web apps I created as a reporter was a local crime map (inspired by, but much less sophisticated than Adrian Holovaty's chicagocrime.org [0]). This involved contacting each police department individually and asking them to email me the data. A couple of departments were happy, because they didn't want to pay to develop their own online map. Others (small jurisdictions) didn't have the IT process in place. But there were also large departments that definitely had a data process, but declined to participate (and I didn't really have the capacity to start a legal fight for it, since this was a side project, and I was the sole developer). What I had been told unofficially, even by departments that did agree to send data, was that publicizing the data was perceived to have possible negative consequences -- such as scaring off potential home buyers (this was during the housing bubble). My point is that crime has always been a big draw for local news organizations, and this includes data applications like crime maps. But even ignoring how it might distort public perception of crime, there was always a pretty implicit downside to a local publisher in making their own community look like a shithole. Not just the negative feelings, but the price of real estate (and those real estate advertisers). From what I can tell, Ring's proposed news service is just for Ring customers? That is, a non-Ring user (or someone not in the local geofenced area) might not get to see the crime news for a given area, in the same way that any Web user could visit a public crime mapper like chicagocrime.org. So the Ring news service gets all the upside of the attention that crime news draws without the same downsides that would usually be part of a publisher's news equation. This, added to Ring's already inherent appeal to customers paranoid about local crime, might lead to problematic incentives in their crime coverage. [0] http://www.holovaty.com/writing/chicagocrime.org-tribute/ http://www.holovaty.com/writing/chicagocrime.org-tribute/

swamp40 7y ago

It starts to get good halfway down: I downloaded Neighbors—you can do so without owning a Ring doorbell—and plugged in my address in boring Arlington, Massachusetts, a city of 45,000 that recorded zero murders and only seven robberies last year. It decided I needed to know that someone in the uniform of a local lawn-care service had recently knocked on someone’s door instead of using the doorbell and, when no one answered, left. Also, there was a building fire two towns away, a couple of days ago. Also, two young people, one male, one female, wearing identical T-shirts and lanyards with name badges, carrying clipboards—likely trying to get signatures for some cause or another—rang a doorbell and then walked away when no one answered. “Anyone know who they are?” the post from a Neighbors user asked, perhaps concerned about Islamic State infiltration of the Boston suburbs. “Call the police,” one helpful commenter replied.

RickJWagner 7y ago

Crime reporting is big business. Besides 'Ring', look at the opportunistic hyping of fake hate crimes, ala Jussie Smollett. The desired outcome is the same: Injecting fear into people, causing them to buy something or vote a specific way. It's despicable. It pits people against each other.

peterwwillis 7y ago

They probably found that many people lose interest in their Ring if they don't see a purpose for it, so they're manufacturing a point. The more your Ring tells you about crime, the more afraid you'll be, and want your Ring around to keep you informed about crime.

sandwich9 7y ago

There is a new podcast called Running from Cops. It is about the TV show COPS (the "bad boys, bad boys, what you going to do" theme show) It goes in to how the show make viewers think there is a lot more crime going on than there actually is. The show producers profit off this https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/missing-richard-simmons/running-from-cops-headlong-season-3 https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/missing-richard-simmons/run...

marktangotango 7y ago

It’s propaganda 101, destabilize regimes and states by instilling fear in the population and mistrust of institutions. The fact it’s also profitable is a happy coincidence. At the very least, the perception of rampant crime is a problem for local politicians; they’re seen as incompetent and not doing their jobs. The worst? See fascists regimes of ww2. I own and pay a monthly monitoring fee for a home security system, not because I value the things in my house, but out fear some nut job would try to harm my family. This is not rational, the odds are near zero, and it wouldn’t stop a determined attacker anyway, but it is a deterrent. And I don’t want to kill anyone, even if it is often “justified” (castle doctrine). There’s definitly money in fear.

anon4lol 7y ago

I have a Ring doorbell camera and a camera in our garage, mostly to see if the garage door is closed. The "crime alerts" are annoying, so I've basically turned off all the notifications. Looks like amazon has figured out that crime sells security equipment. We had a problem with teenagers were ringing our doorbell and screaming late at night around 1 a.m. It became a nightly ordeal, and sometimes several times a night. Sometimes they would kick the door and run away. Surprisingly, some of them were teenage girls. Since my wife is pregnant, I knew this had to stop. There is no way I wanted to deal with this with a newborn infant. The comments on NextDoor are funny to me because it is filled with wingnuts and busy bodies. When I asked for advice on how to handle this situation, I was shouted down by social justice warriors who told me not to call the police because it was racist. I said fine, I'll just tell the registered sex offender who was recently released from prison (for abducting and raping a young woman) that there are young women harassing us, oh and by the way, all are neighbors are conditioned to ignore their screams and we won't call the police... because it is racist. Oddly enough, none of the social justice warriors replied to say I shouldn't. I called the police and posted the videos on YouTube and sent them the link. They found them and calmly talked to them. Problem solved.

neilv 7y ago

If you want just the personally important hyperlocal crime news, your local police department might have an alerts email list that they use judiciously. Cambridge, Massaschusetts, USA, does this well. The advisories seem to be prompted by exceptional events/situations that people should know about (e.g., rash of B&E following a pattern in a particular neighborhood, or a rare shooting). If your local PD doesn't do this, consider asking them. Email list is vastly better than pushing you to follow them on Twitter or Facebook. A city-wide genuine news outlet that cherry-picks important things from the police crime log, and follows up with additional reporting, is also good. And some awareness of the gist of it is important as a voting citizen and community member (e.g., you should be aware that, in some neighborhoods of your city, people might have justifiable fears of being hit by stray bullets, or how close to home the opiod epidemic, and read some of the journalism that personalizes ordinary people who are killed). However, following every little hyperlocal thing exhaustively, or reading/watching for sensationalism/entertainment doesn't sound like a good idea, or at least is a huge time sink. Also, the reader/community comments can be spirit-crushing. Separately, journalism is best done without any potential conflicts of interest. Most outlets I can think of have ownership that appears questionable (e.g., a big company/person with an interest in influencing public perception, or with other business before the politicians on which it's supposed to be a Fourth Estate check), but that kind of ownership shouldn't be the norm, and we should try to move away from that.