16 ms·
Citizen’s dangerous effort to cash in on vigilantism
- arkitaip 5y agoWhile many employees at Citizen felt the Pacific Palisades incident was a huge mistake, Andrew Frame looked at it differently. While Frame showed some contrition, he sees the bounty experiment as a "massive net win," a step on the way for his app to become a private safety network that is "going into what the government is failing to do," which is, in the company's mind, failing to keep people safe, according to his Slack response to Prince. ----- Citizen's culture seems fundamentally rotten and I think I understand why with this CEO.
- UncleMeat 5y ago"Going into what the government is failing to do" sounds an awful lot like "encouraging lynching".
- TeMPOraL 5y agoThey should be shut down by government order, because they're a threat to national security. I'm serious. Their business is proving to be a direct assault on the right to a fair trial before punishment is dispensed. This is literally taking the crazy Twitter cancel mobs from digital space to meatspace.
- kelnos 5y agoTo be fair, policing is generally a failure in the US. Citizen is not the solution, though.
- fmakunbound 5y ago> "It plays into people’s anxieties and fears and magnifies people’s fears of the other ... Sound's like they have a winning formula if Facebook is any indication of successful tech.
- andyjih_ 5y agoCitizen seemed shady at best from the beginning, but their true colors are showing now. I hope employees leave and that the investors divest.
- generalizations 5y agoTo clarify: the bounty was $10-30k for information leading to a specific suspect's arrest. When I first heard about it, it sounded like the bounty was a 'dead or alive' kind of thing.
- joe_the_user 5y agoThat the bounty sounded like that is enough to make it harmful and despicable. There are enough wingnuts out there who don't think about niceties that you can easily have someone jumping in and starting to assault someone who appears to be the wanted person (but probably isn't).
- mhh__ 5y agoSee also "We did it Reddit!" wrt Boston Bombings.
- TeMPOraL 5y agoIt doesn't take explicit assault. When "The Circle" (minor spoiler alert) demonstrated just how such "crowdsourced chase" scenario can rack up a body count, the target wasn't attacked - he died because some excited rando fucked up and caused a traffic accident with a camera drone. It's not the wingnuts I'd be afraid of. It's the overexcited normies.
- wolverine876 5y agoRemember the impact on the victim beyond physical safety, both their reputation and the emotional cost. I hope they sue the f** out of Frame and Citizen.
- jakelazaroff 5y ago> Citizen, using a new livestreaming service it had just launched called OnAir, would catch the suspect live on air, with thousands of people watching. I'm sorry, is this describing real life or an episode of Black Mirror? It's so blatantly dystopian that I'm at a loss for words.
- jandrese 5y agoIt's a scene taken almost directly from Fahrenheit 451. https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/451/section9/ https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/451/section9/
- isaacremuant 5y agoThe poignant part about Fahrenheit scene is that in the end, they just end up "catching and destroying" some random passerby when they can't find the target because people the show must have an end and it's all about optics. "The enemy has been neutralised".
- jandrese 5y agoSee also: Reddit's Internet Detective routine in response to the Boston Marathon Bomber.
- munk-a 5y agoCue some muggers becoming celebrities due to executing their actions in flamboyant outfits, it'll be the next professional wrestling!
- cratermoon 5y agoSee also "A Clockwork Orange"
- jjk166 5y agoSo this is how supervillains become a thing.
- 5y ago
- getcrunk 5y agoIt's crazy watching the world turn into a dystopia and being powerless to stop it. It not just about this company. If they fail another will replace it. Society seems to be on a convergent path with dystopian scifi. This, Chicago police automated policing program (detects crime before it happenes and actually hurt innocent people), racially biased facial recognition. I read an article today about some DNA software being used to convict someone to death row. His legal team couldn't view the source code to challenge its probabalistic accuracy. It doesn't seem like there is even a place to start. A first step could be making a website that documents and tracks all these things then forming a pac. But how long will the take before and if it starts effecting change
- shadowgovt 5y agoDystopian sci-fi (cyberpunk in particular) did a pretty good job of looking at emergent technology and human nature and extrapolating.
- slakrems 5y agoCan’t wait for the live streamed rapes! /s
- wolverine876 5y ago> It's crazy watching the world turn into a dystopia and being powerless to stop it. We feel powerless - I feel it too at times - but we're not. Who would have thought the world could change this much? We can change it also for the better. The social world we envision is very deeply ingrained in humans, probably through evolution. We are social creatures, not sociopathic. I think a start is standing up for our human values (honesty, respect, fairness, justice, compassion, humanitarianism, reason, knowledge, etc. etc.- doing the right thing). The Internet has been seen as a different place, an experimental place, where those values don't matter or don't apply - we could try something different; it has been like a virutal game world where we can act out being someone different. The experiment is over. It turns out the values do matter (of course, there's reasons they survive human history) - and they matter more than in the physical world, due to the power of communication on the Internet. It's time to stop accepting what we wouldn't accept at a dinner table or in a professional social situation (or choose your analogy). The Internet is part of IRL, no different than a restaurant. HN, for example, has much improved; I hope it will go further and adopt that concept.
- paxys 5y agoThis entire incident sounds like a nightmare. How on earth have they not been sued over it yet?
- munk-a 5y agoI know this is beside the main point of the article - but the fact that the CEO's surname is Frame is one of these truth is stranger than fiction moments. If you wrote up a drama about someone writing an app like this and gave the CEO that surname you'd be called a hack.
- wearywanderer 5y agoSeems like an unfortunate case of nominative determinism.
- donw 5y agoIf only he had been accepted to that art college...
- shard 5y agoIs this an oblique Godwin?
- freeone3000 5y agoArt comes in frames.
- shard 5y agoYes, that is the direct read. I was commenting on a possible second layer meaning.
- Terr_ 5y ago> In Slack messages viewed by Motherboard, Frame calls ProtectOS, the system Citizen uses to create incidents and push them out to users, "the most powerful operating system ever created." Sounds like the fictional CTOS from the Watch_Dogs games.
- cyral 5y ago> the system Citizen uses to create incidents and push them out to users Gives me watch dog vibes too. Sounds more like a CRUD app though.
- selfhoster11 5y agoIt's shocking how little self-awareness (or empathy) one must have to know this and not change the name immediately.
- petermcneeley 5y agoPerhaps this is a mere symptom of some other problem. In Canada I dont personally recall witnessing crime in my adult life. If I saw someone doing something criminal today I would just you know... call the cops. Perhaps in the USA the lived experience is somewhat different? Maybe more crime? Maybe the police dont show up?
- wearywanderer 5y agoIt depends on the city and it depends on the crime. If you see somebody vandalizing property in Seattle and call the cops, they probably won't show up (sample size of 3 for me.)
- bentcorner 5y ago+1. I live in a US suburb and have seen at a distance one violent crime in about 20 years. In Canada I've spent more time in the sketchier downtown areas and have personally experienced more crime, although it is still rare. Canadian suburbs are (in my experience) as equally dull as US ones. That is to say, I have not perceived a difference between the US and Canada wrt crime.
- cratermoon 5y agoCrime in the US is relatively low, except in a few urban areas, and even then it's restricted to just a few neighborhoods. Things like this are symptom of racism, classism, and xenophobia. https://www.npr.org/2016/07/28/487560886/is-trumps-call-for-law-and-order-a-coded-racial-message https://www.npr.org/2016/07/28/487560886/is-trumps-call-for-...
- kinghajj 5y agoWhile driving on Oak in SF last weekend, I saw a man get out of a car, run to an open parked Uhaul truck, grab something, then take off. Right as he left, the (presumed) owner of the stolen articles came out of the house, put his hands up, and made a "Fucking really?" expression. My first reaction was, "Welcome to the Bay Area! Watch your shit!"
- OldGoodNewBad 5y agoIn many communities it’s clear that the DAs won’t prosecute criminals, so vigilantism is inevitable. People demand justice, in other words punishment, for criminals, and they will obtain it if the system fails. We’re heading toward the Albanian model and that’s actually OK. If we all drop our little safe happy delusions we’ll see it’s necessary to get your own justice.
- _vertigo 5y agoThis attitude is fundamentally incompatible with American (really, all Western) civic values. It goes against what our entire system of law is built on.
- lurquer 5y agoMeh... not really. Our “entire system of law” exists precisely to channel and standardize vengeance and retribution. When the law breaks down, vigilantism (or, more commonly, protection rackets) will arise. I prefer law and order. But, let’s not lose sight of why we have “law and order.” Its not to handle criminals... it’s to dissuade ordinary folks from taking matters into their own hands.
- OldGoodNewBad 5y agoSo does, for example, letting hundreds of Antifa arsonists and terrorists go without charges. And it's only going to get worse. Don't blame me for saying this, blame DAs who won't prosecute their own cousins, who know they are safe in their criminal activity. Western civilization has failed, by and large. It's up to the people in the wreckage to figure out something better. The judicial system has failed, and it's not going to improve from here on out.
- krastanov 5y ago> People demand justice, in other words punishment Not being able to distinguish justice and punishment sounds terrifying. To me this is as fundamental as "innocent until proven guilty". I am simply not interested in living in a society in which these two notions are confused for each other (and no, I am not privileged rich elite that gets to not be affected by crime).
- vmception 5y ago> The staffer who brought up the terms of service violation was ignored in that specific Slack room, and the broadcast continued This sums up my experience with diverse opinions and observations in tech companies
- coldcode 5y agoAlso interesting that use Slack and apparently can't control someone inside from leaking said Slacks.
- ceejayoz 5y agoWhy is that interesting? It's trivial to screenshot a Slack channel. Or pretty much any other form of communication a business might use.
- vmception 5y agoOn that note I often use my ipad to take a picture of my iphone just in case the particular app has screen shot notifications It’s usually benign stuff, it’s just that you can’t risk having to explain why you ever screenshotted to your friends
- grenoire 5y agoAmerican HN readers: Is everything alright? It seems a new kind of on-the-edge over there. Does it truly feel unsafe to the extent that people resort to violent and intrusive systems like these?
- wearywanderer 5y agoThe wealthy have always hired private security.
- shadowgovt 5y agoEverything is not alright, but increased crime rates are only a small part of that. Perception is, generally, very divorced from reality, and people don't have the fundamental skills to recognize that or cross-check their information.
- banannaise 5y agoIt doesn't feel unsafe. Apps like this are just people with a violence fetish getting off, not that having a lot of those in your country is particularly pleasant either.
- esturk 5y agoCitizens are conditioned to believe that police will solve all the crimes from shows like True Crime, CSI, etc. And when said criminals are such masterminds that even the police can't catch, they are then conditioned by superhero movies from Marvel, Superman, Batman, etc. that someone should rise up to catch such criminals, this is the end state. See, every kid is taught and empowered growing up that they should stand up for what's right. And when the justice system is imperfect, everyone is trying to fix it in the best way they know how. Some are doing it politically, socially, physically, etc.
- ceejayoz 5y agoAll true, and there's an additional factor: these shows, and news coverage about crime, make people think crime is far more prevalent (and rising) than it is. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/16/voters-perceptions-of-crime-continue-to-conflict-with-reality/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/16/voters-perc... Local news Facebook comments are full of "there's so much crime! it was never like this when I was younger!" but the reality is completely in the opposite direction.
- vmception 5y ago> Citizen does moderate comments, but "two people having an argument about whether or not someone’s comment is racist drives engagement," LOL, my publicist does this on linkedin and other places for us because people are gullible. Source article: Executive of <Company> does a thing 0 engagement, nobody knows Social Media version: [First] <Race> Executive of <Company> does a thing 15,000 comments, 2 million reach, supporters and detractors argue with each other on the headline creating more engagement. Messages role in. Its perfect and yes we think you are all dumb. Always remember who is shaking the bottle that you’re inside of.
- imwillofficial 5y agoI don’t know who is shaking the bottle, all I know is those fire ants are going down!
- vmception 5y agoBlack ants just have to make everything about the fire ants huh!
- jkr42 5y agoMust be nice, actively exploiting human nature and then calling the humans dumb and gullible for having said nature and falling for your exploitation. Absolves you of any liability for being no better than a troll because what, you’re smarter than everyone else, I guess? You and your “publicist” (what are you, Ryan Gosling?) figured out dark marketing patterns and now you’re on a different plane of existence from the plebes? I don’t know what you think this comment accomplishes, but it certainly didn’t accomplish that. Who’s shaking your bottle, enlightened one?
- vmception 5y agoI/Execs don't care My publicist definitely doesn't care You/Commenters care and that's whats funny Publicist gets results and I decide to pay their monthly retainer again or not I occasionally look at what they're doing and sometimes it demystifies what other trends I see on social media like LinkedIn, a perpetual crowdsources A/B test that they keep falling for. I don't think it is human nature, as different humans are inspired by people that look like them and would not be aware if it was not mentioned, and different humans have no clue why it is mentioned and a subset of those different humans a triggered by that and think it is their mission to reveal to everyone that mentioning it is the problem. Bread and circuses
- n_time 5y agoThat Vigilante ad gives me serious Jennifer Government vibes
- neom 5y agoAbout 5 years ago I met these guys when I was building a smart city startup in NYC. We helped cities unify their data from various vendors they use, one of the data streams was a computerized 911 dispatch. Vigilante (at the time) was interested in getting access to the 911 dispatch API. I had a long conversation with them and they couldn't understand/answer any difficult questions - I was extremely uncomfortable- nevertheless, I took it to a few cities and floated the idea of allowing them to tap in, some cities seemed marginally interested but wanted to provide access to the data with a 10+ minute delay on it so as to prevent ambulance chasing/vigilantism... of course this was useless to them, they needed real time, so they stuck to transcribing 911 dispatch from the radio waves. Given they couldn't/wouldn't ask basic questions about safety, I'm not at all surprised this is happening.
- duncan-donuts 5y agoWhat do you mean by, “they couldn’t understand/answer any difficult questions”?
- heavyset_go 5y agoThey were pretending to be dense in order to not have to face the truth about their product, or at least to not have to admit to it.
- contemporary343 5y agoWell, the app was originally called Vigilante with the goal of enabling... mob justice. So, this really isn't surprising. Applying contemporary growth hacking and engagement techniques to making people feel afraid and seek private security is just abominable. LA county is 10 million people - there are going to be all kinds of criminal activities on any given day, but rarely anywhere close to you. The app though will make sure even a minor thing a few miles from you gets you revved up. Just a recipe for more social disfunction. The worst part is that LA county and city decided to use Citizen for contract tracing during the pandemic, which drove up downloads in the LA: https://covid19.lacounty.gov/covid19-news/la-county-city-leaders-join-forces-citizen-launch-safepass-partnership/ https://covid19.lacounty.gov/covid19-news/la-county-city-lea... - they really need to push back on this vigilante stuff now.
- fallingknife 5y ago> "They don’t much care about the accuracy or the usefulness of the information they put out, they just want to push as many notifications to create that feeling of vulnerability that leads people to the subscription services." But it's somehow not a problem when professional "journalists" do it?
- TeMPOraL 5y agoIt is. But this is a) new, and b) more apparent.
- wolverine876 5y agoIn case people are missing the broader point of the article, beyond the horrifying incident at the beginning: "The whole idea behind Protect is that you could convince people to pay for the product once you’ve gotten them to the highest point of anxiety you can possibly get them to," one former employee said, referring to Citizen's subscription service. "Citizen can’t make money unless it makes its users believe there are constant, urgent threats around them at all times," ... Citizen incentivizes both its employees and the public to create incidents because they are the core currency of the app and what drives user engagement, user retention, and a sense of reliance on the app itself. ... "It’s basically an anxiety sweatshop," a Citizen source said. "On days when things are 'slow,' they relax the standards around incidents because a dip in incident count is really bad," they added. The company sends congratulatory emails announcing which analysts reported the highest number of incidents, another source added. ... A former employee added, "They don’t much care about the accuracy or the usefulness of the information they put out, they just want to push as many notifications to create that feeling of vulnerability that leads people to the subscription services."
- leetcrew 5y agoI do notice, at least in my city, that there seem to be a lot more reports of violent crime in my area on citizen than I would expect from looking at the city's official crime map data. that said, I don't trust the city enough to conclude that the inaccuracy is mostly on citizen's side.
- joe_the_user 5y agoIn most places, crimes are reported to the city by average people but then investigated to determine if anything actually occurred. As far as I know, Citizen lets people reports things with no filtering at all. So by all means, use an anti-government stance to trust a stream of completely unverified claims. My local paper does the service of publishing 911/police reports. Some would make it to a crime map but a lot of this merits a shrug. Example: "A caller from Rollins View Drive, near Bear Springs Road, reported a heated verbal altercation with a neighbor that ended when they spat in the caller’s face." - avoid heated arguments with neighbor. The only way this realistically gets into a crime report is if a cop/DA really doesn't like the spitter, etc. Overall: Of course, police reports aren't fully accurate but the reports of "Citizen", being completely unfiltered, allow wingnuts and busybodies put out their narrative in an unfettered fashion. https://www.theunion.com/news/nevada-county-police-blotter-caller-says-man-was-following-woman-asking-for-sexual-favors/ https://www.theunion.com/news/nevada-county-police-blotter-c...
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- aemreunal 5y agoHere's what I think will happen if their "on-demand protection" service launches: Someone will eventually get killed, they will either shut down that service or completely, then the executive(s) won't face any charges. Even Batman had the decency of asking private citizens to not engage in vigilantism.
- ineedasername 5y agoWow, even without the strong tone of "hustle" and move fast and break things, there is just so much potential for abuse and/or horrible mistakes. And that's without even accounting for the fundamentally fear-based business model.
- kodah 5y agoWe talk a lot about mobs here. It seems someone has monetized the mob. Not only am I disappointed in the proponents of mobs and call out culture, but I am doubly disappointed in the people who profit from them. Social media, Citizen/Vigilante, to the mainstream news. We are so lost.
- asdff 5y agoIt's been like this forever. Tribalism is nothing new. We are predisposed to think like this, because our violent and tribal ancestors hundreds of thousands of years ago killed off lineages who might have been more predisposed to peaceful, collective thought. Look at the abhorrant acts that charismatic leaders were able to make their fanatics do to other humans throughout history. Ancient times were no different. Fearing the dangerous other may have even meant survival in a warlike time. Humanity went through a bottleneck and we are what emerged bloodied over warring for resources. To fight this natural tendency take serious education in critical thinking to recognize these biases, and root them out.
- kodah 5y ago> It's been like this forever. Tribalism is nothing new I don't think it's useful to say this. There's something different about these mobs, and maybe it's something amorphous like "reach" or the fact that they can feel so close while remaining so far away by invading our devices and mindspace without an opportunity for escape. Other mobs hold and espouse some high morals while acting entirely amorally, which I guess is what makes them look like the mobs of old. The commonality I've read in survivor stories is that the victims had to "disconnect", which I think people view a bit lightly. That's a large cost in today's world. This problem is worth addressing.
- TeMPOraL 5y ago> There's something different about these mobs I'd say the new thing is just how transient they are. They nucleate around a Tweet or a Citizen-driven manhunt in a matter of minutes or hours, ruin someone's life, and then disband. There's no stopping them, because the whole process happens so quickly that the people in the mob are all running on their initial burst of outrage and excitement. By the time they cool down enough to think things through, the deed is done.
- jancsika 5y agoI want to try my hand at the n-gate.com summary for this one: "Some webshits finish The Wire and answer the question we've all been wondering since the finale aired: why didn't the Baltimore Police simply write an app to crowdsource 'juking the stats'? Citizen (Uber for Reddit's Boston Bomber Fiasco) is born, but Apple doesn't have time to review it as they are busy finishing their own dystopian surveillance nightmare-- Airtag (Uber for Stalking). Luckily, an American HN arrives to remind everyone that actual crime has been falling since the 90s. Given the low probability of anything bad ever happening in the U.S. due widespread misperception of the truth, HN moves on to a story about adtech delivery speedups on client machines."
- TeMPOraL 5y agoIn the finest Star Trek tradition, you've earned a commendation for a job well done, and the fact that you violated the Prime Directive will be silently ignored. Also: "Hackernews", not "HN".
- koi66 5y agoWebshits continue the war against people who aren’t webshits, is the lede you were looking for. Wow, flagged in 30 seconds. Touchy crowd. Getting a little close to reckoning on the Web’s impact on your neighbors, eh? Don’t worry: I know you showdead, those of you most responsible for where we are.
- klunger 5y agoReading this made me think, 'Wouldn't it be nice if there was an app that just called out people for doing generous/friendly/artistic/impressive things locally?'
- jfrunyon 5y agoMan... those quotes... I really wanna know how much he spent on drugs that night.
- smbv 5y agoIt feels like the fiction novel The Circle (by Dave Eggers) was used as a handbook to create a company. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18302455-the-circle https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18302455-the-circle
- jfrunyon 5y ago> In addition, we are focused on reducing the reach of notifications about violent incidents, and increasing the reach of notifications about incidents such as missing people or pets being reunited with their families—we could all use some more good news. "We would rather provide engaging info than useful info." At least they're honest.
- 650REDHAIR 5y agoThat is...Troubling. I think I will be deleting the citizen app from my phone now...
- JohnWhigham 5y agoThis shit needs to be shut down. All it's doing is manufacturing a new normal for society to always be on edge and to encourage spying on their neighbors.
- ArkanExplorer 5y agoWhy is George Soros funding DAs who refuse to prosecute crimes? https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/aug/20/george-soros-funded-das-oversee-big-cities-skyrock/ https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/aug/20/george-soro... "Soros-backed DAs in Philadelphia, St. Louis, San Francisco and other cities have fired scores of experienced prosecutors and, as promised, stopped prosecuting low-level quality-of-life crimes such as disorderly conduct, vagrancy and loitering." "Mr. Soros’ New York Safety and Public Justice PAC spent at least $800,000 in an unsuccessful bid last November to oust incumbent Republican Sandra Doorley in upstate Monroe County." Is it to create an opportunity for private police forces and security?
- darkwizard42 5y agoWhat does this have to do with the article in question? This seems absolutely tangential and baiting...
- ArkanExplorer 5y agoBecause without those DAs, put in place deliberately by a billionaire, crime rates would not be rising and apps like Citizen would be less necessary. If you have a police force who cannot prosecute crimes then it seems inevitable that private or individual security will take over. If this becomes a multi-billion industry, then spending a few million on DAs seems like a reasonable bet. Of course, society is a lot worse off, so it seems reasonable to question what is going on.
- drewbug01 5y ago> Why is George Soros funding DAs who refuse to prosecute crimes? Smells like a conspiracy theory to me. And citing the Washington Times (a paper notable for having a Wikipedia section devoted to its documented history of publishing things sympathetic to white nationalism) is not a reasonable source to cite. Don't bring racist conspiracy theories here; that's not appropriate for conversation.
- jb775 5y ago
- Animats 5y agoWait until "Citizen" does this in a state with more guns.
- devfatigue 5y agoAnyone else think we should jail the entire company in the name of public safety? We have officers who actually work for the government running roughshod over individuals why would we allow corporations to do this?
- permo-w 5y agoWhen got to about a third of the way through this article, I started to wonder if this was some kind of fictional dystopian thought piece. It is not. How is this legal? The capacity for this to go wrong and hurt people is so damn high
- permo-w 5y agoIf we want to fight this, we should find the falsely accused arsonist and crowd-fund him a lawsuit. This cannot go on
- supergirl 5y agoat the very end: > Frame said at the all-hands that he is still performing a manhunt for the person Citizen falsely accused, but this time in order to apologize. > "We need to find this person and we are actively looking to find him. We are not done when it comes to this person," notes from the all-hands say. "Andrew [Frame] said they are working on that and this has the chance to turn into a very happy moment." Someone has a giant ego and doesn't understand they fucked up. Trying to still find this guy and put a camera in his face...