7 ms·

Facebook is using the Menlo Park Police Department to reshape the city

64 points by johnny313 7y ago

nostrademons 7y ago
One other way to look at this narrative is "Facebook provides bicycles as an employee benefit. They are to be used only by employees. When someone took them off campus, Facebook assumed theft and notified the local police. When they discovered that the person was in fact a Facebook employee and entitled to the use of the bicycle, they dropped the charges." You can still argue about the legitimacy of private corporate-owned property as an employee benefit at all, along with the potential racial profiling that led people to assume that a Hispanic man was not a Facebook employee. But I'm not sure that their actions would've been all that different if it had been a white brogrammer that took the bike home - they'd probably call the police, the police would investigate, and if it was found to be an employee, the charges would be dropped.
- michael_l_650 7y ago
  Did you read the rest of the article? The ties go well beyond the initial story.
- cowpig 7y ago
  As a white dude who has had many experiences with cops, I can tell you that if a police officer asked me if I stole Facebook bike I was riding, and I replied, "no, I'm an employee," they might ask for some kind of evidence before letting me move on with my life. I've seen how different my friends of color are treated by cops everywhere in the US, and pretending that's not a thing is either ignorant or disingenuous.
  - ahbyb 7y ago
    I'm not sure what colour your "friends of colour" are, but if we assume black, I'm sure a properly dressed black person (which is what I'd expect from a Facebook employee) won't receive as much scrutiny as one that wears baggy pants.
    - opsdonkey 7y ago
      Baggy pants aren’t the problem in this scenario.
    - 333c 7y ago
      Who defines what is proper?
    - ccvannorman 7y ago
      Let me try to rephrase your point: A well-dressed black man will get less scrutiny than a poorly-dressed black man, but you don't address at all that they're still both more scrutinized than their white counterparts? What is your point?
  - stevenicr 7y ago
    Another data point related, from another white dude that has had many experiences. Color may indeed be a factor in some situations, however I have found that, to be an issue, that is heavily dependent on location, time of day, and when combined with other factors such as clothing, tattoos, and many other signals. You or I might or not get asked for proof of fbook employment with color being a factor in that, sure - however I do believe that other factors would weigh on that choice even more. Compare two made up people - one with a pocket protector, a patagonia vest, some khakis, dress shoes.. another has sagging jeans, tattoos, a snoop dogg tshirt (or willie nelson for that matter), whatever... with attributes like those, I would bet that the other factors would have more to do with the choice to verify than just color. This is not to say that there are not bad cops in the world who only go by things that they should not - and I certainly strongly believe we need more different training, and checkups with our law enforcers in this country (and the world) 100% - I can say that many other factors are at play when most cops try to summarize things - time of day and location, along with other signifiers are something that usually play more of a role in decisions. These things are not always good indicators of good guy / bad guy - its just something that plays out to be helpful in more situations than not. I also do not agree with the 'everywhere in the US' statement - things are very different in my neck of the woods when you drive only 30 minutes - and they change immensely when you drive another 30. One could experience all kinds of different treatment based on things like color, type of car, type of clothing, choice in music, ways of speaking, all sorts of things, and that treatment could change every 30 minutes all day long, and you wouldn't even cover but a small percentage of this country.
    - ccvannorman 7y ago
      So your 7-paragraph argument is to say, "The issue is not as black and white as purely color and is more nuanced depending on many other factors" ? I mean, duh. The argument is that color is a large percentage of the end result, and that doesn't change just "because there are many other contributing factors you didn't mention".
      - stevenicr 7y ago
        1 - yes. 2 - I did not think it was an argument - just putting some considerations out there. I don't know you and your experiences, it appears to that me pointing out some things was more intended for other audiences though. Would be great if everyone knew 'duh... ...there are many other contributing factors' - sadly though, I find more and more people influenced by their LED screens to determine the reality of America out there. Whether it's people from other countries reading this thread or other 'news' - or school kids that have not traveled this large diverse country - even people I have engaged with living in the cities - there are things spouted out, and believed, that are not a 'large percentage' - yet it's touted as being true. I believe you, I, and others in much of the USA are more likely to be viewed with suspicion, followed, harassed or whatever based upon socio-economic 'signals' - than color, or even voice accent. Yes, there are 'many other contributing factors you didn't mention' - I am glad you realize that, I am hoping that other people who read similar things are also presented this information - those who already know seem to understand it - yet they often fail to mention it when sharing with others that may not know the full scope of how things really are. It may not change the end result for you and me, but it certainly can change other people's perception who don't have the same understanding as you seem to have, which could be many other people being influenced / affected by such public statements.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
deogeo 7y ago
> Menlo Park, an affluent, mostly white city of 35,000 To repeat from the previous time this was posted: According to their own source, Menlo Park is 70% white, but this includes Hispanics, who make up 18%. Assuming they were mostly counted under white, this leaves whites as barely over half of the residents - certainly less than the 61% non-Hispanic white of the US as a whole [1]. So why does Vice try to frame Menlo Park as some sort of white stronghold, when it's less white than the US on average? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_United_States#Race_and_ethnicity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_United_State...
- mertd 7y ago
  What the stats don't tell you is that the city is divided by a 8 lane freeway where the affluent folks live on one side and FB campus is on the other side.
- bsanr 7y ago
  Because it's still above the tipping point. Cities not majority-minority or undergoing white flight will still enjoy the benefits of being perceived as having a mostly-white population (responsive and sympathetic law enforcement, for one).
askar_yu 7y ago
Constant emphasis on 'people of color' makes it hard to read and dilutes the main point. Such obsession to view everything through the length of race is mind boggling. This is seems to be a US thing. I mean, you steal a bike, you are responsible. Whether you're mostly brown, mostly white or mostly blue is irrelevant. As simple as that.
saagarjha 7y ago
> The dutiful compliance of the police—first chasing after Facebook property that Facebook employees left around the community as litter, then standing down when told by Facebook that the culprit was part of a special, protected class—is a minor instantiation of a broader issue: Just how intertwined Facebook and local police have become. I don’t get this characterization at all. Facebook thought that some of its bikes were missing, thought they were stolen, contacted the police, and told the police to do nothing when they figured out the bike was being used by a Facebook employee. How is this problematic or even not normal?
- riversflow 7y ago
  Have you ever been a victim of property theft? The police caring is highly irregular. Feels like justice for the rich.
  - knzhou 7y ago
    I've had stuff stolen from me plenty of times, and the police never cared because there was nothing they could do about it. My stuff was here, now it isn't, what are they supposed to do? Obviously it's different if the owner of a stolen thing literally sees it out on the street, which is what happened in this case.
    - riversflow 7y ago
      uh, idk, try and look for it on Craigslist, eBay, and the local flee market? If they cared about justice this is something that they would do. I’ve seen cops laugh at property crime, even with specifics on who stole it and where they are. They can never be bothered unless you are powerful.
      - knzhou 7y ago
        > uh, idk, try and look for it on Craigslist, eBay, and the local flee market? How much free time do you think these guys have? They have a full time job, you know. My dad likes to tell this story: when he was my age, his bike would get stolen all the time, and it would always end up at the same spot in the local flea market. He'd come up and say "that's my bike!", they'd say "no it isn't", and he'd just have to buy it back. Now suppose the police actually could have been damned to show up. Obviously, the same thing would happen. He'd say "that's my bike!", they'd say "no it isn't", they would just stare at each other for a while and the policeman would have wasted his time. For this reason property crime has never been worth it for police to pursue unless the object is very valuable, or unique, or its ownership is easily identifiable. Yes, that correlates with being rich and powerful, but that's not the actual reason.
mnm1 7y ago
If you're rich enough you not only get to ignore laws you don't like, you get your own police force to do your dirty work. Whether that's kicking out Latinos in Menlo Park today or rounding up slaves back in the days America was "great," it's a long-standing tradition with roots going back hundreds of years in America.
angf 7y ago
Facebook should be called to account if they broke any laws and were not prosecuted for it. I don't see any evidence of that in the article. What I do see is an article heavy on racial overtones, as if trying to manufacture outrage at Facebook. What should a large company do in this case? Who should pay for the extra civic services that a company's presence causes? Residents?
- knzhou 7y ago
  > What should a large company do in this case? If you pay, it's "sinister". If you don't pay, it's "parasitic". If you get your own, it's "mercenary". In all cases it is "dystopian".
knzhou 7y ago
This article is an interesting example of using careful wording to paint one side as maximally sympathetic and the other as maximally unsympathetic. It's the kind of thing that should be read in high school classes to help train critical thinking. In the beginning, there is not much information, but an extraordinary amount of editorialization, where neutral things get adjectives slapped onto them to make the reader know what side they're supposed to be on. I went through and collated them: > dutiful compliance occupying communities mostly white deeply unusual isolated campus imperial fashion latest conquest snatched up alarming sinister in its own image manipulation tiny technotopia In the middle, there's the classic catch-22. Facebook is causing gentrification and "displacing families" when its employees move into poor communities. But when its employees choose to move in elsewhere, it is an "isolated" "tiny techtopia" that is "excluding the communities from their wealth". As usual you are damned if you do and damned if you don't. Later, it finally concedes that bikes actually are constantly stolen from Facebook, which is the whole point of its actions in the first place, but goes to great lengths to avoid calling it stealing: > "You have an extremely poor community that is being flooded with toys of wealth, and these things are going to happen" > "teens in low-income areas [...] should not be detained or ticketed for, say, using a Facebook bicycle to get to school" > "[parents should not have to worry] about their kids having a bad interaction with the police over a stupid bike" I live in Menlo Park (though not a tech employee) and almost had my bike stolen last week. I would be pissed off if the police caught the thief and let them off because it's "a stupid bike". It's how I commute, I can't function without it, and I can't just buy another one. In the end I can't find any reason to be upset -- I don't think there's a difference between ~10,000 Menlo Park residents independently complaining to the police about theft, and Facebook (who hires ~10,000 Menlo Park residents) merely collating them. Facebook isn't getting a say in Menlo Park affairs because it's a big corporation, it's because its employees make up a significant share of the population. That is fair.
- RaiseProfits 7y ago
  Welcome to corporate media where spin IS the substance! At least it’s not “terrorism”, “democracy”, “national security”, or “freedom” related. Why can’t Facebook keep track of its own bikes? Cops don’t scale like gps does.
CodeWriter23 7y ago
What’s really astonishing to me is Facebook can’t develop a mobile app to secure the bikes to prevent unauthorized riding and to hold their employees accountable for littering the city with discarded bikes.
rolph 7y ago
This is something that could be mutual opportunity, instead it has become a conflict. What does a bicycle cost F13? What is preventing F13 from providing bikes and shopping carts to the community , as a service? Why would F13 want to pass up the opportunity for data?
- smelendez 7y ago
  What is F13?
  - rolph 7y ago
    its an acronym for F@(3 13oo|<
LurkersWillLurk 7y ago
Calling the "Facebook police unit" - a group of city police officers assigned to the Facebook campus - the "privatization of the law" is quite overblown, especially when compared to the actual private police departments that exist across the United States. If the residents of Menlo Park don't like how their police department operates, then they can elect new city leadership to change the police department accordingly. Compare that to university police, which is often controlled by the university trustees. Who elects the trustees? It usually isn't the undergraduates, which comprise the majority of the university's population. Whether it's the state governor, legislature, or alumni, the decisionmakers charged with administering the police power do not answer to those against whom that power is used. It gets worse with railroad police, which are wholly owned, funded, and operated by private railroad companies, and have national jurisdiction. The powers of the state should never be in the hands of a private corporation, organization, or university, but what's happening at Facebook isn't that at all.
situational87 7y ago
>The dutiful compliance of the police—first chasing after Facebook property that Facebook employees left around the community as litter, then standing down when told by Facebook that the culprit was part of a special, protected class Wow, I didn't realize we were already living in a corporate anime dystopia. I mean I knew it was on the way, but holy cow I guess it already happened.

64 points by johnny313 7y ago

One other way to look at this narrative is "Facebook provides bicycles as an employee benefit. They are to be used only by employees. When someone took them off campus, Facebook assumed theft and notified the local police. When they discovered that the person was in fact a Facebook employee and entitled to the use of the bicycle, they dropped the charges." You can still argue about the legitimacy of private corporate-owned property as an employee benefit at all, along with the potential racial profiling that led people to assume that a Hispanic man was not a Facebook employee. But I'm not sure that their actions would've been all that different if it had been a white brogrammer that took the bike home - they'd probably call the police, the police would investigate, and if it was found to be an employee, the charges would be dropped.

michael_l_650 7y ago
Did you read the rest of the article? The ties go well beyond the initial story.
cowpig 7y ago
As a white dude who has had many experiences with cops, I can tell you that if a police officer asked me if I stole Facebook bike I was riding, and I replied, "no, I'm an employee," they might ask for some kind of evidence before letting me move on with my life. I've seen how different my friends of color are treated by cops everywhere in the US, and pretending that's not a thing is either ignorant or disingenuous.
- ahbyb 7y ago
  I'm not sure what colour your "friends of colour" are, but if we assume black, I'm sure a properly dressed black person (which is what I'd expect from a Facebook employee) won't receive as much scrutiny as one that wears baggy pants.
  - opsdonkey 7y ago
    Baggy pants aren’t the problem in this scenario.
  - 333c 7y ago
    Who defines what is proper?
  - ccvannorman 7y ago
    Let me try to rephrase your point: A well-dressed black man will get less scrutiny than a poorly-dressed black man, but you don't address at all that they're still both more scrutinized than their white counterparts? What is your point?
- stevenicr 7y ago
  Another data point related, from another white dude that has had many experiences. Color may indeed be a factor in some situations, however I have found that, to be an issue, that is heavily dependent on location, time of day, and when combined with other factors such as clothing, tattoos, and many other signals. You or I might or not get asked for proof of fbook employment with color being a factor in that, sure - however I do believe that other factors would weigh on that choice even more. Compare two made up people - one with a pocket protector, a patagonia vest, some khakis, dress shoes.. another has sagging jeans, tattoos, a snoop dogg tshirt (or willie nelson for that matter), whatever... with attributes like those, I would bet that the other factors would have more to do with the choice to verify than just color. This is not to say that there are not bad cops in the world who only go by things that they should not - and I certainly strongly believe we need more different training, and checkups with our law enforcers in this country (and the world) 100% - I can say that many other factors are at play when most cops try to summarize things - time of day and location, along with other signifiers are something that usually play more of a role in decisions. These things are not always good indicators of good guy / bad guy - its just something that plays out to be helpful in more situations than not. I also do not agree with the 'everywhere in the US' statement - things are very different in my neck of the woods when you drive only 30 minutes - and they change immensely when you drive another 30. One could experience all kinds of different treatment based on things like color, type of car, type of clothing, choice in music, ways of speaking, all sorts of things, and that treatment could change every 30 minutes all day long, and you wouldn't even cover but a small percentage of this country.
  - ccvannorman 7y ago
    So your 7-paragraph argument is to say, "The issue is not as black and white as purely color and is more nuanced depending on many other factors" ? I mean, duh. The argument is that color is a large percentage of the end result, and that doesn't change just "because there are many other contributing factors you didn't mention".
    - stevenicr 7y ago
      1 - yes. 2 - I did not think it was an argument - just putting some considerations out there. I don't know you and your experiences, it appears to that me pointing out some things was more intended for other audiences though. Would be great if everyone knew 'duh... ...there are many other contributing factors' - sadly though, I find more and more people influenced by their LED screens to determine the reality of America out there. Whether it's people from other countries reading this thread or other 'news' - or school kids that have not traveled this large diverse country - even people I have engaged with living in the cities - there are things spouted out, and believed, that are not a 'large percentage' - yet it's touted as being true. I believe you, I, and others in much of the USA are more likely to be viewed with suspicion, followed, harassed or whatever based upon socio-economic 'signals' - than color, or even voice accent. Yes, there are 'many other contributing factors you didn't mention' - I am glad you realize that, I am hoping that other people who read similar things are also presented this information - those who already know seem to understand it - yet they often fail to mention it when sharing with others that may not know the full scope of how things really are. It may not change the end result for you and me, but it certainly can change other people's perception who don't have the same understanding as you seem to have, which could be many other people being influenced / affected by such public statements.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

deogeo 7y ago

> Menlo Park, an affluent, mostly white city of 35,000 To repeat from the previous time this was posted: According to their own source, Menlo Park is 70% white, but this includes Hispanics, who make up 18%. Assuming they were mostly counted under white, this leaves whites as barely over half of the residents - certainly less than the 61% non-Hispanic white of the US as a whole [1]. So why does Vice try to frame Menlo Park as some sort of white stronghold, when it's less white than the US on average? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_United_States#Race_and_ethnicity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_United_State...

mertd 7y ago
What the stats don't tell you is that the city is divided by a 8 lane freeway where the affluent folks live on one side and FB campus is on the other side.
bsanr 7y ago
Because it's still above the tipping point. Cities not majority-minority or undergoing white flight will still enjoy the benefits of being perceived as having a mostly-white population (responsive and sympathetic law enforcement, for one).

askar_yu 7y ago

Constant emphasis on 'people of color' makes it hard to read and dilutes the main point. Such obsession to view everything through the length of race is mind boggling. This is seems to be a US thing. I mean, you steal a bike, you are responsible. Whether you're mostly brown, mostly white or mostly blue is irrelevant. As simple as that.

saagarjha 7y ago

> The dutiful compliance of the police—first chasing after Facebook property that Facebook employees left around the community as litter, then standing down when told by Facebook that the culprit was part of a special, protected class—is a minor instantiation of a broader issue: Just how intertwined Facebook and local police have become. I don’t get this characterization at all. Facebook thought that some of its bikes were missing, thought they were stolen, contacted the police, and told the police to do nothing when they figured out the bike was being used by a Facebook employee. How is this problematic or even not normal?

riversflow 7y ago
Have you ever been a victim of property theft? The police caring is highly irregular. Feels like justice for the rich.
- knzhou 7y ago
  I've had stuff stolen from me plenty of times, and the police never cared because there was nothing they could do about it. My stuff was here, now it isn't, what are they supposed to do? Obviously it's different if the owner of a stolen thing literally sees it out on the street, which is what happened in this case.
  - riversflow 7y ago
    uh, idk, try and look for it on Craigslist, eBay, and the local flee market? If they cared about justice this is something that they would do. I’ve seen cops laugh at property crime, even with specifics on who stole it and where they are. They can never be bothered unless you are powerful.
    - knzhou 7y ago
      > uh, idk, try and look for it on Craigslist, eBay, and the local flee market? How much free time do you think these guys have? They have a full time job, you know. My dad likes to tell this story: when he was my age, his bike would get stolen all the time, and it would always end up at the same spot in the local flea market. He'd come up and say "that's my bike!", they'd say "no it isn't", and he'd just have to buy it back. Now suppose the police actually could have been damned to show up. Obviously, the same thing would happen. He'd say "that's my bike!", they'd say "no it isn't", they would just stare at each other for a while and the policeman would have wasted his time. For this reason property crime has never been worth it for police to pursue unless the object is very valuable, or unique, or its ownership is easily identifiable. Yes, that correlates with being rich and powerful, but that's not the actual reason.

mnm1 7y ago

If you're rich enough you not only get to ignore laws you don't like, you get your own police force to do your dirty work. Whether that's kicking out Latinos in Menlo Park today or rounding up slaves back in the days America was "great," it's a long-standing tradition with roots going back hundreds of years in America.

angf 7y ago

Facebook should be called to account if they broke any laws and were not prosecuted for it. I don't see any evidence of that in the article. What I do see is an article heavy on racial overtones, as if trying to manufacture outrage at Facebook. What should a large company do in this case? Who should pay for the extra civic services that a company's presence causes? Residents?

knzhou 7y ago
> What should a large company do in this case? If you pay, it's "sinister". If you don't pay, it's "parasitic". If you get your own, it's "mercenary". In all cases it is "dystopian".

knzhou 7y ago

This article is an interesting example of using careful wording to paint one side as maximally sympathetic and the other as maximally unsympathetic. It's the kind of thing that should be read in high school classes to help train critical thinking. In the beginning, there is not much information, but an extraordinary amount of editorialization, where neutral things get adjectives slapped onto them to make the reader know what side they're supposed to be on. I went through and collated them: > dutiful compliance occupying communities mostly white deeply unusual isolated campus imperial fashion latest conquest snatched up alarming sinister in its own image manipulation tiny technotopia In the middle, there's the classic catch-22. Facebook is causing gentrification and "displacing families" when its employees move into poor communities. But when its employees choose to move in elsewhere, it is an "isolated" "tiny techtopia" that is "excluding the communities from their wealth". As usual you are damned if you do and damned if you don't. Later, it finally concedes that bikes actually are constantly stolen from Facebook, which is the whole point of its actions in the first place, but goes to great lengths to avoid calling it stealing: > "You have an extremely poor community that is being flooded with toys of wealth, and these things are going to happen" > "teens in low-income areas [...] should not be detained or ticketed for, say, using a Facebook bicycle to get to school" > "[parents should not have to worry] about their kids having a bad interaction with the police over a stupid bike" I live in Menlo Park (though not a tech employee) and almost had my bike stolen last week. I would be pissed off if the police caught the thief and let them off because it's "a stupid bike". It's how I commute, I can't function without it, and I can't just buy another one. In the end I can't find any reason to be upset -- I don't think there's a difference between ~10,000 Menlo Park residents independently complaining to the police about theft, and Facebook (who hires ~10,000 Menlo Park residents) merely collating them. Facebook isn't getting a say in Menlo Park affairs because it's a big corporation, it's because its employees make up a significant share of the population. That is fair.

RaiseProfits 7y ago
Welcome to corporate media where spin IS the substance! At least it’s not “terrorism”, “democracy”, “national security”, or “freedom” related. Why can’t Facebook keep track of its own bikes? Cops don’t scale like gps does.

CodeWriter23 7y ago

What’s really astonishing to me is Facebook can’t develop a mobile app to secure the bikes to prevent unauthorized riding and to hold their employees accountable for littering the city with discarded bikes.

rolph 7y ago

This is something that could be mutual opportunity, instead it has become a conflict. What does a bicycle cost F13? What is preventing F13 from providing bikes and shopping carts to the community , as a service? Why would F13 want to pass up the opportunity for data?

smelendez 7y ago
What is F13?
- rolph 7y ago
  its an acronym for F@(3 13oo|<

LurkersWillLurk 7y ago

Calling the "Facebook police unit" - a group of city police officers assigned to the Facebook campus - the "privatization of the law" is quite overblown, especially when compared to the actual private police departments that exist across the United States. If the residents of Menlo Park don't like how their police department operates, then they can elect new city leadership to change the police department accordingly. Compare that to university police, which is often controlled by the university trustees. Who elects the trustees? It usually isn't the undergraduates, which comprise the majority of the university's population. Whether it's the state governor, legislature, or alumni, the decisionmakers charged with administering the police power do not answer to those against whom that power is used. It gets worse with railroad police, which are wholly owned, funded, and operated by private railroad companies, and have national jurisdiction. The powers of the state should never be in the hands of a private corporation, organization, or university, but what's happening at Facebook isn't that at all.

situational87 7y ago

>The dutiful compliance of the police—first chasing after Facebook property that Facebook employees left around the community as litter, then standing down when told by Facebook that the culprit was part of a special, protected class Wow, I didn't realize we were already living in a corporate anime dystopia. I mean I knew it was on the way, but holy cow I guess it already happened.