19 ms·

Slack Removed a Blog Post Showing How Police Use Its Tech

224 points by jmsflknr 6y ago

sbilstein 6y ago
Former Slack employee here... This blog post/case study was published a few years ago by Slack's marketing team and led to a firestorm of controversy within the company. Many employees of all backgrounds spoke up about how upset they were that Slack would use a police department as marketing. Eventually the decision was made to keep it up which certainly frustrated a lot of people. I guess now the leaders have decided it's time to take it down. edit: in private channels for POC, which I was a part of, people were incensed at the insensitivity. At the time I felt it was a particularly stupid choice for marketing material but not necessarily a moral wrong.
- _bxg1 6y ago
  A few years ago I would've thought thought that was an overreaction (assuming police were just using it as customers, and not something like surveillance). This week, I no longer feel that way.
  - Nasrudith 6y ago
    To be fair the customer and surveilance are linked as a matter of conflict of interest in general. Not quite a concern for a single local PD but say all of NYPD or whole states would be a big enough contract to be able to exert pressure by threatening to switch to more "cooperative" providers.
  - netsharc 6y ago
    Honest foreigner question: are all US police that "stinky" that any association with them is now bad, or is it an overreaction? Surely there are good police departments, ones that work with the community and not against them? But maybe I'm not seeing it from the perspective of those black employees...
    - JCharante 6y ago
      I've seen videos of unjustified force by PDs in not just my hometown but my college town as well. Surely there are good police departments, but there are far too many police departments ending up in this GitHub repo that tracks police brutality https://github.com/2020PB/police-brutality https://github.com/2020PB/police-brutality
    - PragmaticPulp 6y ago
      The problem is a lack of accountability for the bad police. If good police are standing by while the bad police are abusing their power, they aren’t really good police. If the bad police are walking away without repercussions or, in some cases, even retaining their taxpayer-paid pensions, we can’t trust the police force as a whole. The job of police is to maintain order, not to protect their own.
      - Spivak 6y ago
        You're absolutely right but I don't think holding someone's retirement account over their heads is a good move. Let them keep their pension for the number of years they actually did serve. Strip them of their right to serve sure, but don't go back in time and pull their paycheck.
        freeone3000 6y ago
        I feel there needs to be some form of individual accountability. With a 99.87% acquittal rate, mostly due to dismissals, and an immunity from civil suits, it's currently impossible to actually punish any individual officer for wrongdoing. If they were opened up to individual civil liability, sure, we can let a jury decide how much damage they caused.
        mtnGoat 6y ago
        i am OK with them having the money they put in themselves prior to their abuse of power, as long as any litigation is settled from it first. However i don't think they should get a pension that includes any monies from other parties like taxes.
  - akerro 6y ago
    The post is from 2017, which is long after Snowden era.
- paxys 6y ago
  It was a particularly stupid decision IMO since "we partner/co-operate with US police departments" is the last thing that large companies - especially foreign ones - want to hear from an app that stores their most sensitive data.
- xwowsersx 6y ago
  Why though? Is there not a legitimate role for policing in a civil society? And if there is, don't they need to coordinate and collaborate just like any other organization?
  - revscat 6y ago
    In the abstract police are necessary. In today’s America, with the police as they actually exist today, they are very much not necessary, and are a drain on public safety, social order, and personal liberty.
    - javagram 6y ago
      That doesn’t make sense. There are 300 million guns in America and plenty of crime happens every year. It’s true crime is down from the historical highs of the 70s and 80s, but there are very much still murders and thefts that need to be investigated and punished. The reality is if police were abolished we’d go back to the bad old days of private detective agencies being used for security. Would you rather have some sort of unholy fusion of Blackwater and the Pinkerton detective agency performing policing tasks in our country?
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - detaro 6y ago
        The argument by most seems to be not "get rid of all police and then nothing", but rather to replace it as much as possible from the ground up. Which might very well mean re-allocating resources and removing responsibilities from police, e.g. around mental health, but not getting rid all law enforcement. Phrased this way and not as a "reform" because they believe attempting to reform the existing system slowly won't work.
      - mywittyname 6y ago
        The bulk of crimes committed in the USA do not require traditional LEO aside from apprehensions. Investigations, evidence collection, interviews, etc can all be done by any old bureaucrat. Much like the FDA investigators and Fire Marshals don't need the authority of an LEO. There's no need for police to be first-responders in purely medical situations. It's unfair to expect that police also take up the burden of medical care. While we are at it, it's also silly that the fire department responds to non-fire medical incidents in their big ass fire truck. Doing so compromises their abilities to handle situations where their expertise is explicitly required. Every town in America does not need a SWAT team. Thsoe should be specialized agencies that serve a particular region and have a limited number of deployments. If we were building a system from scratch today, people would not suggest dumping these duties on beat cops.
- siruncledrew 6y ago
  From a pure marketing perspective, it’s a bad idea to publish things that carry heavy current negatives, making them not good “evergreen” content pieces. In the same (corporate) sense as publishing a use case about a payday loan company or oil drilling company is a bad idea. Maybe they will evolve and become better over time - but that doesn’t matter if the current ‘ROI’ is bad. It would be like ‘HODLing’ a falling stock hoping it will one day go up again.
kyleee 6y ago
is there a link to the archived post?
- throwaway1997 6y ago
  Should be this one https://archive.is/iCVq0 https://archive.is/iCVq0
  - donclark 6y ago
    403 Forbidden
    - throwaway1997 6y ago
      It doesn't work if you use DNS over https
      - donclark 6y ago
        Thank you
    - dogecoinbase 6y ago
      There's a copy in the Internet Archive as well: http://web.archive.org/web/20170621172438/https://slackhq.com/fighting-crime-with-slack-fbd296bc31db?source=rss----676872f53db6---4&gi=bd50554bc6d2 http://web.archive.org/web/20170621172438/https://slackhq.co...
sol_invictus 6y ago
I don’t get it. Are we now advocating that police is overall more of a force of evil than good? Legitimate question.
- _bxg1 6y ago
  That is what's becoming apparent right now, yes. I was more of an "a few bad apples" person until this week. But they're making it extremely clear that as a faction they have no regard for anything or anyone but their own power and bravado.
  - secabeen 6y ago
    Yep. The police seem to be caught in us-vs-them tribalism where police are the us, and them is the citizenry that they are supposed to serve.
    - netsharc 6y ago
      Yeah, and then they also manage to convince themselves (and their supporters) that they're the victims, because they do dangerous work/their colleagues get shot, and the "they" they are facing are all dangerous Jason Bourne-esque assassins...
      - philips 6y ago
        I recently have been learning how deadly Policing is in comparison to other jobs and it came as a surprise to me: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/01/28/charted-the-20-deadliest-jobs-in-america/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/01/28/chart...
        asdff 6y ago
        In reality it's an absolute dogshit job. The hours are long, there's a very real chance of PTSD or bodily harm, and they haze you worse than bootcamp. LAPD has a problem recruiting since everyone who is level headed enough to make a good cop sees it rightly as this horrible job.
throwaway1997 6y ago
Post in question: https://archive.is/iCVq0 https://archive.is/iCVq0 (Sorry to post twice but think this is relevant as a root level comment)
- kroolik 6y ago
  Link looks broken. Getting 403 Forbidden.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - throwaway1997 6y ago
    This is caused by using DNS over https
    - devado 6y ago
      Same here. Why is it caused by DNS over https?
      - tsbinz 6y ago
        Because the archive.is operator returns bad results when queried by Cloudflare. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19828702 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19828702
        ciarannolan 6y ago
        Any idea when this pissing match will be resolved? I spend 8-12 hours online every day and have only ever seen this issue with that one website.
paxys 6y ago
The last thing any company needs right now is the media digging up an old blog post/Tweet of them praising the police, so can't blame them. I wouldn't be surprised if the post magically comes back up when things are back to normal.
misiti3780 6y ago
Possibly somewhat ironically (and hypocritically?), the CEO seems very anti-police based on twitter: https://twitter.com/stewart/status/1268749287615156230 https://twitter.com/stewart/status/1268749287615156230 https://twitter.com/stewart https://twitter.com/stewart Disclaimer: I am a happy user of slack and do not have an opinion on the blog post
- Tallasatree 6y ago
  I'm guessing the CEO is not anti-money.
  - misiti3780 6y ago
    Also, he probably cant legally not let police departments use it, it's publically traded.
    - jefftk 6y ago
      Why would being publicly traded keep them from choosing their customers?
      - misiti3780 6y ago
        I assumed that it's his/their fiduciary duty to maximize profit, and if the current excutive team doesnt do that, they will be replaced with a team that will.
        jefftk 6y ago
        Execs have wide latitude to do their jobs, and considering the current circumstances I could see them deciding that declining to take police as customers would be better for the company long term. This would be a very defensible decision legally (not a lawyer). You're right that it could plausibly lead to some sort of shareholder rebellion, but I'd be surprised.
pl0x 6y ago
Have switched from Slack to discord and our team has been happy.
- apta 6y ago
  What benefits do you find that discord offers over Slack?
  - pl0x 6y ago
    1.Cost 2) Real time voice chat is a game changer 3) Better User Management
- 0az 6y ago
  I've used Discord for years, and admin a small community server. With the new video chat features, I wouldn't be surprised if we saw a B2B offering soon. I certainly hope that they do so: their platform is mature, and more useful than Zoom and Slack. Server mutes. Local volume. Push to talk. Krisp noise cancellation. Non-hostile UX. Non-threaded conversation. In Zoom, when the presenter shares their screen, you're forced into full screen, which disrupts my note taking flow. The meeting chat's also a joke. Sure, Zoom is a useful FaceTime alternative for Enterprise, but it isn't good for collaboration. It's very self centered. Zoom also took the interesting stance of letting FBI/Police have access to user conversations. Discord doesn't have E2E, but they did tweet a post of solidarity. /rant
4636760295 6y ago
One way techies can affect change is to not do business with the government, particularly law enforcement and military. However, this won't happen, because at the end of the day the only thing people actually care about is money.
- commandlinefan 6y ago
  > the only thing people actually care about is money Although I do care about money, I also support my government and my local police force, and would be happy and proud if my work could be used to make their efforts more efficient as well as more open, transparent, and fair. I don't agree with everything my government does, and I believe that there are bad cops that need to be corrected, but don't presume to speak for me.
  - anotheracct_ 6y ago
    I'll speak for you here. Fuck you.
  - 4636760295 6y ago
    If you have 1,000 cops, and 1 of them does something bad while the other 999 take no action, then you have 1,000 bad cops.
- spoopyskelly 6y ago
  > However, this won't happen, because at the end of the day the only thing people actually care about is money. This won't happen, because at the end of the day Slack Technologies is a public company and their mission is to make their investors money, not cater to the activist cause du jour.
  - 4636760295 6y ago
    Yep.
jeffdavis 6y ago
Are we saying that: (a) police are a net good, but slack is aiding/encouraging particular bad behaviors; or (b) police are a net bad and we should just deny them anything that enables them to do their jobs; or (c) police are a net good, but it's bad PR to associate with them
- giancarlostoro 6y ago
  It is more than likely C. At least according to a comment here by a former Slack employee.
- ceilingcorner 6y ago
  It's a witch-hunt, plain and simple. Of course the police needs reform, demilitarization, higher standards, more accountability, and better educational requirements. How you get any of those things by demonizing the police and making it a left-vs-right political issue is beyond me.
  - bradly 6y ago
    > How you get any of those things by demonizing the police and making it a left-vs-right political issue is beyond me. If not this way the, how do you get it? It's been hundreds of years. The U.S. is not immune to revolutions and revolutions have changed corrupt states for a very long time.
    - ceilingcorner 6y ago
      Study other countries which have less police violence? Incorporate more community involvement? Etc. The idea that society doesn't need some sort of police force is so hilariously naive, I am in disbelief that serious people are suggesting it. Clearly they are from an extremely privileged background and never had to deal with living in poor areas. The police absolutely need reform, but to pretend that they're more of a threat than criminals is factually false.
      - stormbrew 6y ago
foolinaround 6y ago
we need to look seriously at curtailing the power of the unions. Even yesterday, the leader of the union in MN said that they are going to appeal for the jobs - since these guys were fired without due process.
- spoopyskelly 6y ago
  The union's job is to protect the workers, not agree with your politics.
shibeouya 6y ago
Coming from a country where police has been rendered completely toothless by the same policies some people in this country are trying to promote which led to literally lawless areas, I am completely against this movement that's currently for some reason trying to demonize cops. I do not care if you're black, white, asian, gay, lesbian or anything - if you break the law, threaten a police officer, or simply ask completely irresponsibly around them, you should be punished appropriately. What I DO agree with is perhaps greater transparency from the police. This is a problem that can be fixed. Anyone wishing to defund or even abolish the police clearly has lived a coddled life for way too long and doesn't know what happens when police can't do their jobs. Be smart and don't let poisonous politics cloud your judgement - police are nowhere near as bad as some media would love to make you believe.
- adrianN 6y ago
  I think the police should protect and help the people. This often doesn't work out. At least in my country I think they could do that better if they had more funding. But from what I gather about police in the US they quite often punish people. I don't think that's okay, but I also don't think that cutting their funding would help with that.
- affyboi 6y ago
  > punished appropriately This is exactly what the protests are about, that police are using disproportionate amounts of force, and it seems to be heavily influenced by race. If you break the law, you're entitled to a fair trial and a fair punishment. Handing someone a fake $20 bill doesn't warrant death. Hell, I've gotten caught speeding multiple times, I can't imagine that you'd argue that it's worth an execution or even a beating. I also jaywalk all the time. And people aren't getting their opinion of the police from the media, a lot of this anti-police sentiment is spurred by firsthand videos from protestors on the ground. Not to mention that protesting is protected by the constitution and is a cornerstone of our democracy.
  - on_and_off 6y ago
    it is also not the job or the prerogative of cops to punish anybody FFS. They have a VERY special role in society where they are authorized to use violence against other citizens. This role absolutely does not include any form of punishment or beating up people because they feel like it. Unfortunately police needs way stricter rules, monitoring and accountability than what they have today in many countries.
oh_sigh 6y ago
After 9/11, there were a surge of recruits joining the military because they felt it was their patriotic duty. In the wake of George Floyd et al, will people start joining the police force in an attempt to reform it from within?

224 points by jmsflknr 6y ago

Former Slack employee here... This blog post/case study was published a few years ago by Slack's marketing team and led to a firestorm of controversy within the company. Many employees of all backgrounds spoke up about how upset they were that Slack would use a police department as marketing. Eventually the decision was made to keep it up which certainly frustrated a lot of people. I guess now the leaders have decided it's time to take it down. edit: in private channels for POC, which I was a part of, people were incensed at the insensitivity. At the time I felt it was a particularly stupid choice for marketing material but not necessarily a moral wrong.

_bxg1 6y ago
A few years ago I would've thought thought that was an overreaction (assuming police were just using it as customers, and not something like surveillance). This week, I no longer feel that way.
- Nasrudith 6y ago
  To be fair the customer and surveilance are linked as a matter of conflict of interest in general. Not quite a concern for a single local PD but say all of NYPD or whole states would be a big enough contract to be able to exert pressure by threatening to switch to more "cooperative" providers.
- netsharc 6y ago
  Honest foreigner question: are all US police that "stinky" that any association with them is now bad, or is it an overreaction? Surely there are good police departments, ones that work with the community and not against them? But maybe I'm not seeing it from the perspective of those black employees...
  - JCharante 6y ago
    I've seen videos of unjustified force by PDs in not just my hometown but my college town as well. Surely there are good police departments, but there are far too many police departments ending up in this GitHub repo that tracks police brutality https://github.com/2020PB/police-brutality https://github.com/2020PB/police-brutality
  - PragmaticPulp 6y ago
    The problem is a lack of accountability for the bad police. If good police are standing by while the bad police are abusing their power, they aren’t really good police. If the bad police are walking away without repercussions or, in some cases, even retaining their taxpayer-paid pensions, we can’t trust the police force as a whole. The job of police is to maintain order, not to protect their own.
    - Spivak 6y ago
      You're absolutely right but I don't think holding someone's retirement account over their heads is a good move. Let them keep their pension for the number of years they actually did serve. Strip them of their right to serve sure, but don't go back in time and pull their paycheck.
      - freeone3000 6y ago
        I feel there needs to be some form of individual accountability. With a 99.87% acquittal rate, mostly due to dismissals, and an immunity from civil suits, it's currently impossible to actually punish any individual officer for wrongdoing. If they were opened up to individual civil liability, sure, we can let a jury decide how much damage they caused.
      - mtnGoat 6y ago
        i am OK with them having the money they put in themselves prior to their abuse of power, as long as any litigation is settled from it first. However i don't think they should get a pension that includes any monies from other parties like taxes.
- akerro 6y ago
  The post is from 2017, which is long after Snowden era.
paxys 6y ago
It was a particularly stupid decision IMO since "we partner/co-operate with US police departments" is the last thing that large companies - especially foreign ones - want to hear from an app that stores their most sensitive data.
xwowsersx 6y ago
Why though? Is there not a legitimate role for policing in a civil society? And if there is, don't they need to coordinate and collaborate just like any other organization?
- revscat 6y ago
  In the abstract police are necessary. In today’s America, with the police as they actually exist today, they are very much not necessary, and are a drain on public safety, social order, and personal liberty.
  - javagram 6y ago
    That doesn’t make sense. There are 300 million guns in America and plenty of crime happens every year. It’s true crime is down from the historical highs of the 70s and 80s, but there are very much still murders and thefts that need to be investigated and punished. The reality is if police were abolished we’d go back to the bad old days of private detective agencies being used for security. Would you rather have some sort of unholy fusion of Blackwater and the Pinkerton detective agency performing policing tasks in our country?
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - detaro 6y ago
      The argument by most seems to be not "get rid of all police and then nothing", but rather to replace it as much as possible from the ground up. Which might very well mean re-allocating resources and removing responsibilities from police, e.g. around mental health, but not getting rid all law enforcement. Phrased this way and not as a "reform" because they believe attempting to reform the existing system slowly won't work.
    - mywittyname 6y ago
      The bulk of crimes committed in the USA do not require traditional LEO aside from apprehensions. Investigations, evidence collection, interviews, etc can all be done by any old bureaucrat. Much like the FDA investigators and Fire Marshals don't need the authority of an LEO. There's no need for police to be first-responders in purely medical situations. It's unfair to expect that police also take up the burden of medical care. While we are at it, it's also silly that the fire department responds to non-fire medical incidents in their big ass fire truck. Doing so compromises their abilities to handle situations where their expertise is explicitly required. Every town in America does not need a SWAT team. Thsoe should be specialized agencies that serve a particular region and have a limited number of deployments. If we were building a system from scratch today, people would not suggest dumping these duties on beat cops.
siruncledrew 6y ago
From a pure marketing perspective, it’s a bad idea to publish things that carry heavy current negatives, making them not good “evergreen” content pieces. In the same (corporate) sense as publishing a use case about a payday loan company or oil drilling company is a bad idea. Maybe they will evolve and become better over time - but that doesn’t matter if the current ‘ROI’ is bad. It would be like ‘HODLing’ a falling stock hoping it will one day go up again.

kyleee 6y ago

is there a link to the archived post?

throwaway1997 6y ago
Should be this one https://archive.is/iCVq0 https://archive.is/iCVq0
- donclark 6y ago
  403 Forbidden
  - throwaway1997 6y ago
    It doesn't work if you use DNS over https
    - donclark 6y ago
      Thank you
  - dogecoinbase 6y ago
    There's a copy in the Internet Archive as well: http://web.archive.org/web/20170621172438/https://slackhq.com/fighting-crime-with-slack-fbd296bc31db?source=rss----676872f53db6---4&gi=bd50554bc6d2 http://web.archive.org/web/20170621172438/https://slackhq.co...

sol_invictus 6y ago

I don’t get it. Are we now advocating that police is overall more of a force of evil than good? Legitimate question.

_bxg1 6y ago
That is what's becoming apparent right now, yes. I was more of an "a few bad apples" person until this week. But they're making it extremely clear that as a faction they have no regard for anything or anyone but their own power and bravado.
- secabeen 6y ago
  Yep. The police seem to be caught in us-vs-them tribalism where police are the us, and them is the citizenry that they are supposed to serve.
  - netsharc 6y ago
    Yeah, and then they also manage to convince themselves (and their supporters) that they're the victims, because they do dangerous work/their colleagues get shot, and the "they" they are facing are all dangerous Jason Bourne-esque assassins...
    - philips 6y ago
      I recently have been learning how deadly Policing is in comparison to other jobs and it came as a surprise to me: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/01/28/charted-the-20-deadliest-jobs-in-america/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/01/28/chart...
      - asdff 6y ago
        In reality it's an absolute dogshit job. The hours are long, there's a very real chance of PTSD or bodily harm, and they haze you worse than bootcamp. LAPD has a problem recruiting since everyone who is level headed enough to make a good cop sees it rightly as this horrible job.

throwaway1997 6y ago

Post in question: https://archive.is/iCVq0 https://archive.is/iCVq0 (Sorry to post twice but think this is relevant as a root level comment)

kroolik 6y ago
Link looks broken. Getting 403 Forbidden.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- throwaway1997 6y ago
  This is caused by using DNS over https
  - devado 6y ago
    Same here. Why is it caused by DNS over https?
    - tsbinz 6y ago
      Because the archive.is operator returns bad results when queried by Cloudflare. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19828702 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19828702
      - ciarannolan 6y ago
        Any idea when this pissing match will be resolved? I spend 8-12 hours online every day and have only ever seen this issue with that one website.

paxys 6y ago

The last thing any company needs right now is the media digging up an old blog post/Tweet of them praising the police, so can't blame them. I wouldn't be surprised if the post magically comes back up when things are back to normal.

misiti3780 6y ago

Possibly somewhat ironically (and hypocritically?), the CEO seems very anti-police based on twitter: https://twitter.com/stewart/status/1268749287615156230 https://twitter.com/stewart/status/1268749287615156230 https://twitter.com/stewart https://twitter.com/stewart Disclaimer: I am a happy user of slack and do not have an opinion on the blog post

Tallasatree 6y ago
I'm guessing the CEO is not anti-money.
- misiti3780 6y ago
  Also, he probably cant legally not let police departments use it, it's publically traded.
  - jefftk 6y ago
    Why would being publicly traded keep them from choosing their customers?
    - misiti3780 6y ago
      I assumed that it's his/their fiduciary duty to maximize profit, and if the current excutive team doesnt do that, they will be replaced with a team that will.
      - jefftk 6y ago
        Execs have wide latitude to do their jobs, and considering the current circumstances I could see them deciding that declining to take police as customers would be better for the company long term. This would be a very defensible decision legally (not a lawyer). You're right that it could plausibly lead to some sort of shareholder rebellion, but I'd be surprised.

pl0x 6y ago

Have switched from Slack to discord and our team has been happy.

apta 6y ago
What benefits do you find that discord offers over Slack?
- pl0x 6y ago
  1.Cost 2) Real time voice chat is a game changer 3) Better User Management
0az 6y ago
I've used Discord for years, and admin a small community server. With the new video chat features, I wouldn't be surprised if we saw a B2B offering soon. I certainly hope that they do so: their platform is mature, and more useful than Zoom and Slack. Server mutes. Local volume. Push to talk. Krisp noise cancellation. Non-hostile UX. Non-threaded conversation. In Zoom, when the presenter shares their screen, you're forced into full screen, which disrupts my note taking flow. The meeting chat's also a joke. Sure, Zoom is a useful FaceTime alternative for Enterprise, but it isn't good for collaboration. It's very self centered. Zoom also took the interesting stance of letting FBI/Police have access to user conversations. Discord doesn't have E2E, but they did tweet a post of solidarity. /rant

4636760295 6y ago

One way techies can affect change is to not do business with the government, particularly law enforcement and military. However, this won't happen, because at the end of the day the only thing people actually care about is money.

commandlinefan 6y ago
> the only thing people actually care about is money Although I do care about money, I also support my government and my local police force, and would be happy and proud if my work could be used to make their efforts more efficient as well as more open, transparent, and fair. I don't agree with everything my government does, and I believe that there are bad cops that need to be corrected, but don't presume to speak for me.
- anotheracct_ 6y ago
  I'll speak for you here. Fuck you.
- 4636760295 6y ago
  If you have 1,000 cops, and 1 of them does something bad while the other 999 take no action, then you have 1,000 bad cops.
spoopyskelly 6y ago
> However, this won't happen, because at the end of the day the only thing people actually care about is money. This won't happen, because at the end of the day Slack Technologies is a public company and their mission is to make their investors money, not cater to the activist cause du jour.
- 4636760295 6y ago
  Yep.

jeffdavis 6y ago

Are we saying that: (a) police are a net good, but slack is aiding/encouraging particular bad behaviors; or (b) police are a net bad and we should just deny them anything that enables them to do their jobs; or (c) police are a net good, but it's bad PR to associate with them

giancarlostoro 6y ago
It is more than likely C. At least according to a comment here by a former Slack employee.
ceilingcorner 6y ago
It's a witch-hunt, plain and simple. Of course the police needs reform, demilitarization, higher standards, more accountability, and better educational requirements. How you get any of those things by demonizing the police and making it a left-vs-right political issue is beyond me.
- bradly 6y ago
  > How you get any of those things by demonizing the police and making it a left-vs-right political issue is beyond me. If not this way the, how do you get it? It's been hundreds of years. The U.S. is not immune to revolutions and revolutions have changed corrupt states for a very long time.
  - ceilingcorner 6y ago
    Study other countries which have less police violence? Incorporate more community involvement? Etc. The idea that society doesn't need some sort of police force is so hilariously naive, I am in disbelief that serious people are suggesting it. Clearly they are from an extremely privileged background and never had to deal with living in poor areas. The police absolutely need reform, but to pretend that they're more of a threat than criminals is factually false.
    - stormbrew 6y ago

foolinaround 6y ago

we need to look seriously at curtailing the power of the unions. Even yesterday, the leader of the union in MN said that they are going to appeal for the jobs - since these guys were fired without due process.

spoopyskelly 6y ago
The union's job is to protect the workers, not agree with your politics.

shibeouya 6y ago

Coming from a country where police has been rendered completely toothless by the same policies some people in this country are trying to promote which led to literally lawless areas, I am completely against this movement that's currently for some reason trying to demonize cops. I do not care if you're black, white, asian, gay, lesbian or anything - if you break the law, threaten a police officer, or simply ask completely irresponsibly around them, you should be punished appropriately. What I DO agree with is perhaps greater transparency from the police. This is a problem that can be fixed. Anyone wishing to defund or even abolish the police clearly has lived a coddled life for way too long and doesn't know what happens when police can't do their jobs. Be smart and don't let poisonous politics cloud your judgement - police are nowhere near as bad as some media would love to make you believe.

adrianN 6y ago
I think the police should protect and help the people. This often doesn't work out. At least in my country I think they could do that better if they had more funding. But from what I gather about police in the US they quite often punish people. I don't think that's okay, but I also don't think that cutting their funding would help with that.
affyboi 6y ago
> punished appropriately This is exactly what the protests are about, that police are using disproportionate amounts of force, and it seems to be heavily influenced by race. If you break the law, you're entitled to a fair trial and a fair punishment. Handing someone a fake $20 bill doesn't warrant death. Hell, I've gotten caught speeding multiple times, I can't imagine that you'd argue that it's worth an execution or even a beating. I also jaywalk all the time. And people aren't getting their opinion of the police from the media, a lot of this anti-police sentiment is spurred by firsthand videos from protestors on the ground. Not to mention that protesting is protected by the constitution and is a cornerstone of our democracy.
- on_and_off 6y ago
  it is also not the job or the prerogative of cops to punish anybody FFS. They have a VERY special role in society where they are authorized to use violence against other citizens. This role absolutely does not include any form of punishment or beating up people because they feel like it. Unfortunately police needs way stricter rules, monitoring and accountability than what they have today in many countries.

oh_sigh 6y ago

After 9/11, there were a surge of recruits joining the military because they felt it was their patriotic duty. In the wake of George Floyd et al, will people start joining the police force in an attempt to reform it from within?