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> “Let’s find this guy, activate safety network completely,” Frame wrote, according to screenshots of internal Slack messages obtained by The Verge. “This is a

> “Let’s find this guy, activate safety network completely,” Frame wrote, according to screenshots of internal Slack messages obtained by The Verge. “This is a great transition of Citizen back to active safety. We are not a news company. We are safety and we make this sort of heinous crime impossible to escape from. That needs to be our mindset.” The bounty was later raised to $30,000. > However Frame first saw the false identification, the Slack messages show he saw it as an “opportunity” for Citizen to fulfill its “true mission.” > “We know the guy is out there,” said one host, according to Castle. “We need our users to get out there and bring this guy to justice.” > And while Citizen said it plans to get it right next time, Frame suggested in a Slack message that it won’t be the last time Citizen offers a cash reward. “We need to build this into the product and we will,” he wrote. These are scary quotes. The Citizen [app] CEO apparently wants to reframe their company as some sort of vigilante justice machine instead of a simple crime alert app. And he's willing to throw money at it. Of course their first push for vigilante justice is against the wrong person. Given that The Verge has obtained company Slack transcripts, I assume some of the employees are pushing back from the inside. Let's hope the employees continue fighting against this.

ronsor 5y ago
>vigilante justice machine That is illegal, and I feel this company is setting itself up for lawsuits.
- akiselev 5y ago
  From the article: > In the hours that followed, it became clear the app was mistaken. The man pictured had no connection to the fires, and once he was located by law enforcement, he was quickly released for lack of evidence. "Released for lack of evidence" sounds like he was arrested which can show up on arrest records in background checks. IANAL but if this individual gets a job offer that's later rescinded after a background check due to that arrest, that sounds like grounds for a libel lawsuit. The CEO also put up the money himself, so whatever safe harbor exception Citizen could have claimed is probably unworkable (again, IANAL in bold letters).
gumby 5y ago
This apocryphal quote comes to mind, "We may be arresting the wrong people but at least we are arresting people." (variously attributed to Himmler, Beria, Mao or Stalin; th verb is variously "kill" or "arrest")
williamsmj 5y ago
"The Citizen [app] CEO apparently wants to reframe their company as some sort of vigilante justice machine" The app was literally called Vigilante until they were forced to rename it.
- HarryHirsch 5y ago
  With a name like that you don't need to wonder what's going on in the CEO's head. Why is such permitted in civilized society?
  - alpha_squared 5y ago
    Because it's the sort of mentality America was founded on. Not trying to be political, though I'm sure this can be an unpleasant topic. A couple hundred years of, "you're responsible for defending your land and it's your right to defend it," has fascinating and, often, disastrous outcomes.
    - benjaminjosephw 5y ago
      Add to that a conservatism that treats the constitution like a religious text designed to curtail any kind of societal evolution or transformation as circumstances change.
    - throwitaway1235 5y ago
      I would disagree with that pretty strongly. Big difference between an individual defending his property/family with his own property vs funneling that defense through a corporate crowd-sourced surveillance system.
      - alpha_squared 5y ago
        I agree there is a difference, though I'm not sure it's big. It's a natural evolution of individual efforts to coalesce into a group effort. That's the history of humanity.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
mayneack 5y ago
The app was actually originally framed this way and named "Vigilante". It's been bad from the beginning. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_(app) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_(app) https://www.businessinsider.com/citizen-vigilante-app-crime-in-your-area-photos-2017-3 https://www.businessinsider.com/citizen-vigilante-app-crime-...
- tobyjsullivan 5y ago
  This seems like the most important context. Citizen is quite explicitly a vigilante app that promotes vigilantism. The CEO seems to have only pivoted long enough for market traction and still wants to return to the original goal. This quote could not be any clearer: > “This is a great transition of Citizen back to active safety. We are not a news company. We are safety and we make this sort of heinous crime impossible to escape from. That needs to be our mindset.” If this company/CEO isn't stopped, I fear it's only a matter of time before someone (or many someones) gets hurt. Most likely because they "fit the description".
an_opabinia 5y ago
> as some sort of vigilante justice machine Public safety departments everywhere are in denial how absolutely, utterly, batshit pissed off people are about property crime. If police never investigate or arrest a single person or do one preventative thing against people breaking into your car, your house, stealing your bike, scamming you on the phone or on the web, taking random crap, no matter how big or small, you're going to prefer vigilante justice.
- hemloc_io 5y ago
  I'm curious as to what you mean? People in America at least are well known to be very angry about property crime. Look at NIMBYism as well.
  - bananabreakfast 5y ago
    Not in California, where it explicitly cannot be a felony and has widely increased since prop 47 passed.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  >Public safety departments everywhere are in denial how absolutely, utterly, batshit pissed off people are about property crime. Someone from SV assumes the whole world is like SV. Water is wet. More news at 11. Rampant property crime is basically only a feature of the urban west coast and a maybe handful of cities in the mid-west and east. I live in an city most SV techies would sneer at and things don't go missing from my porch or the neighbor's porch.
  - meroes 5y ago
    I personally experienced more of my property stolen while living in the Midwest than out West. If it's anecdote time and all..
  - bluGill 5y ago
    It doesn't matter where you live, young kids will get into trouble. Most places that is limited to kids and they grow up.
hemloc_io 5y ago
> 'More recently, the company raised alarm for operating an SUV labeled as “private patrol” in downtown Los Angeles, although company representatives insist the vehicle is not engaged in security work.' Seems that they really want to be a private security company that augments/replaces the police. I'm morbidly curious as to what would happen if it was allowed to do that.
- HarryHirsch 5y ago
  You don't need to wonder, we have the Icelandic sagas that describe such a society. I especially recommend Hrafnkell's saga.
  - hemloc_io 5y ago
    Hah this is not a reference I was ever expecting to see on this comment. Will check it out!
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  >I'm morbidly curious as to what would happen if it was allowed to do that. Probably get sued into oblivion after screwing up. It's really easy to do when you're not the government and can't raise taxes to cover your stupidity.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - azernik 5y ago
    Or get the courts to give you special liability protection as agents of the state.
  - gethoht 5y ago
    This is the most likely scenario honestly. I was a security guard while I was in college because it gave me time to study. They were very explicit about NOT engaging with anyone in a confrontational manner. You make yourself seen to prevent stuff walking off of job sites and if you see someone doing something you call the police, period. They didn't want to be sued. They even had a limit on how big your mag-lite could be so it wouldn't be considered a weapon.
duxup 5y ago
Vigilantism is scary stuff. I was on reddit and ran across a video that the submission claimed to be of someone poisoning local pets. The video showed someone pouring something on the ground from a distance. We never see what it is. Later we get a video where the camera person is screaming at the person they are recording. The person just walks away as the camera person follows them yelling. I was a bit horrified that when I expressed in some skepticism I was meet with a lot of arguments like. "Why didn't they stop to talk if they're innocent?" "They didn't deny it." "You know people really do this." "You don't have to defend a dog killer you know." People just took the text claims at face value despite the video showing nothing that it claimed, because they were upset by the claim in the text. Apps that just have text and a photo, not even an image of a crime, people will believe it whole hog. A during riots in Minneapolis a local social media apps and sites had rumors spread fast about drive by shootings by people on pickup trucks with assault rifles. These rumor spread several nights in a row despite it never appearing in the news and it being obvious that the previous night's rumors were 100% false. One city council member spread the rumors of a full on Klan rally in a park with robes hoods and all... a completely absurd claim, folks bought it and spread it. So back to the app, we have an app whose audience wants to hear this kind of information. That's a scary audience.
- agency 5y ago
  I mean this is the same forum that whipped itself into a frenzy trying to track down a random kid they collectively decided must have been behind the Boston marathon bombing.
  - tolbish 5y ago
    HN loves to sneer at reddit, but reddit (and HN) is just a microcosm of humanity. If you want to see groupthink/mobs on here, enter any thread about the benefits or drawbacks of cryptocurrencies.
    - duxup 5y ago
      Everyone deserves a good sneer now and then but I come to HN because people generally look closer / think about second order effects and so on. Reddit generally not at all.
tootie 5y ago
How exactly does Citizen have any money? Is it all VC funding? There doesn't seem to be any way for a consumer to pay them anything and the app doesn't have ads.
- user-the-name 5y ago
  From Peter Thiel, of course.
pumaontheprowl 5y ago
Offering a bounty to locate a person of interest in a crime is not "vigilante justice." The police frequently employ the very same strategy. Offering a bounty is not a call to attack or harass the person in question; if you want to make that claim, you need more evidence to substantiate it. Right now there's no evidence the CEO wanted anything more than to have this person identified.
- jhayward 5y ago
  "get out there and hunt him down" is literally vigilantism.
xnx 5y ago
According to Wikipedia, the app was called "Vigilante" in 2016 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_(app) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_(app)

ronsor 5y ago

>vigilante justice machine That is illegal, and I feel this company is setting itself up for lawsuits.

akiselev 5y ago
From the article: > In the hours that followed, it became clear the app was mistaken. The man pictured had no connection to the fires, and once he was located by law enforcement, he was quickly released for lack of evidence. "Released for lack of evidence" sounds like he was arrested which can show up on arrest records in background checks. IANAL but if this individual gets a job offer that's later rescinded after a background check due to that arrest, that sounds like grounds for a libel lawsuit. The CEO also put up the money himself, so whatever safe harbor exception Citizen could have claimed is probably unworkable (again, IANAL in bold letters).

gumby 5y ago

This apocryphal quote comes to mind, "We may be arresting the wrong people but at least we are arresting people." (variously attributed to Himmler, Beria, Mao or Stalin; th verb is variously "kill" or "arrest")

williamsmj 5y ago

"The Citizen [app] CEO apparently wants to reframe their company as some sort of vigilante justice machine" The app was literally called Vigilante until they were forced to rename it.

HarryHirsch 5y ago
With a name like that you don't need to wonder what's going on in the CEO's head. Why is such permitted in civilized society?
- alpha_squared 5y ago
  Because it's the sort of mentality America was founded on. Not trying to be political, though I'm sure this can be an unpleasant topic. A couple hundred years of, "you're responsible for defending your land and it's your right to defend it," has fascinating and, often, disastrous outcomes.
  - benjaminjosephw 5y ago
    Add to that a conservatism that treats the constitution like a religious text designed to curtail any kind of societal evolution or transformation as circumstances change.
  - throwitaway1235 5y ago
    I would disagree with that pretty strongly. Big difference between an individual defending his property/family with his own property vs funneling that defense through a corporate crowd-sourced surveillance system.
    - alpha_squared 5y ago
      I agree there is a difference, though I'm not sure it's big. It's a natural evolution of individual efforts to coalesce into a group effort. That's the history of humanity.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

mayneack 5y ago

The app was actually originally framed this way and named "Vigilante". It's been bad from the beginning. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_(app) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_(app) https://www.businessinsider.com/citizen-vigilante-app-crime-in-your-area-photos-2017-3 https://www.businessinsider.com/citizen-vigilante-app-crime-...

tobyjsullivan 5y ago
This seems like the most important context. Citizen is quite explicitly a vigilante app that promotes vigilantism. The CEO seems to have only pivoted long enough for market traction and still wants to return to the original goal. This quote could not be any clearer: > “This is a great transition of Citizen back to active safety. We are not a news company. We are safety and we make this sort of heinous crime impossible to escape from. That needs to be our mindset.” If this company/CEO isn't stopped, I fear it's only a matter of time before someone (or many someones) gets hurt. Most likely because they "fit the description".

an_opabinia 5y ago

> as some sort of vigilante justice machine Public safety departments everywhere are in denial how absolutely, utterly, batshit pissed off people are about property crime. If police never investigate or arrest a single person or do one preventative thing against people breaking into your car, your house, stealing your bike, scamming you on the phone or on the web, taking random crap, no matter how big or small, you're going to prefer vigilante justice.

hemloc_io 5y ago
I'm curious as to what you mean? People in America at least are well known to be very angry about property crime. Look at NIMBYism as well.
- bananabreakfast 5y ago
  Not in California, where it explicitly cannot be a felony and has widely increased since prop 47 passed.
throwaway0a5e 5y ago
>Public safety departments everywhere are in denial how absolutely, utterly, batshit pissed off people are about property crime. Someone from SV assumes the whole world is like SV. Water is wet. More news at 11. Rampant property crime is basically only a feature of the urban west coast and a maybe handful of cities in the mid-west and east. I live in an city most SV techies would sneer at and things don't go missing from my porch or the neighbor's porch.
- meroes 5y ago
  I personally experienced more of my property stolen while living in the Midwest than out West. If it's anecdote time and all..
- bluGill 5y ago
  It doesn't matter where you live, young kids will get into trouble. Most places that is limited to kids and they grow up.

hemloc_io 5y ago

> 'More recently, the company raised alarm for operating an SUV labeled as “private patrol” in downtown Los Angeles, although company representatives insist the vehicle is not engaged in security work.' Seems that they really want to be a private security company that augments/replaces the police. I'm morbidly curious as to what would happen if it was allowed to do that.

HarryHirsch 5y ago
You don't need to wonder, we have the Icelandic sagas that describe such a society. I especially recommend Hrafnkell's saga.
- hemloc_io 5y ago
  Hah this is not a reference I was ever expecting to see on this comment. Will check it out!
throwaway0a5e 5y ago
>I'm morbidly curious as to what would happen if it was allowed to do that. Probably get sued into oblivion after screwing up. It's really easy to do when you're not the government and can't raise taxes to cover your stupidity.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- azernik 5y ago
  Or get the courts to give you special liability protection as agents of the state.
- gethoht 5y ago
  This is the most likely scenario honestly. I was a security guard while I was in college because it gave me time to study. They were very explicit about NOT engaging with anyone in a confrontational manner. You make yourself seen to prevent stuff walking off of job sites and if you see someone doing something you call the police, period. They didn't want to be sued. They even had a limit on how big your mag-lite could be so it wouldn't be considered a weapon.

duxup 5y ago

Vigilantism is scary stuff. I was on reddit and ran across a video that the submission claimed to be of someone poisoning local pets. The video showed someone pouring something on the ground from a distance. We never see what it is. Later we get a video where the camera person is screaming at the person they are recording. The person just walks away as the camera person follows them yelling. I was a bit horrified that when I expressed in some skepticism I was meet with a lot of arguments like. "Why didn't they stop to talk if they're innocent?" "They didn't deny it." "You know people really do this." "You don't have to defend a dog killer you know." People just took the text claims at face value despite the video showing nothing that it claimed, because they were upset by the claim in the text. Apps that just have text and a photo, not even an image of a crime, people will believe it whole hog. A during riots in Minneapolis a local social media apps and sites had rumors spread fast about drive by shootings by people on pickup trucks with assault rifles. These rumor spread several nights in a row despite it never appearing in the news and it being obvious that the previous night's rumors were 100% false. One city council member spread the rumors of a full on Klan rally in a park with robes hoods and all... a completely absurd claim, folks bought it and spread it. So back to the app, we have an app whose audience wants to hear this kind of information. That's a scary audience.

agency 5y ago
I mean this is the same forum that whipped itself into a frenzy trying to track down a random kid they collectively decided must have been behind the Boston marathon bombing.
- tolbish 5y ago
  HN loves to sneer at reddit, but reddit (and HN) is just a microcosm of humanity. If you want to see groupthink/mobs on here, enter any thread about the benefits or drawbacks of cryptocurrencies.
  - duxup 5y ago
    Everyone deserves a good sneer now and then but I come to HN because people generally look closer / think about second order effects and so on. Reddit generally not at all.

tootie 5y ago

How exactly does Citizen have any money? Is it all VC funding? There doesn't seem to be any way for a consumer to pay them anything and the app doesn't have ads.

user-the-name 5y ago
From Peter Thiel, of course.

pumaontheprowl 5y ago

Offering a bounty to locate a person of interest in a crime is not "vigilante justice." The police frequently employ the very same strategy. Offering a bounty is not a call to attack or harass the person in question; if you want to make that claim, you need more evidence to substantiate it. Right now there's no evidence the CEO wanted anything more than to have this person identified.

jhayward 5y ago
"get out there and hunt him down" is literally vigilantism.

xnx 5y ago

According to Wikipedia, the app was called "Vigilante" in 2016 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_(app) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_(app)