4 ms·

To some degree I understand the cop's position. The internet is an insanely dangerous echo chamber. The vast, VAST majority of police interactions are not that.

by 015a 5y ago

To some degree I understand the cop's position. The internet is an insanely dangerous echo chamber. The vast, VAST majority of police interactions are not that. The vast majority of police interactions are well-meaning officers maintaining public order. This doesn't excuse the interactions which are unrighteous and deserve to be exposed, possibly including the interaction that these people were protesting. The officer here was, to my view, the more sane one. He said you could record. If something happened bad enough to justify publishing the video to expose the interaction, a little Taylor Swift music shouldn't stop that dissemination of information. What it can do is dampen Ambient Outrage; a citizen surveillance state of uploading every police interaction out there to social media for Internet Crazies to get angry about because Cops Are Just Evil, where there is no nuance, no context, just outrage and ad dollars for the protestors behind the uploads. Its memey and sad that this is the lengths officers have to go to. That's it. But if it works, especially in a situation when the officer flat-out says "yeah you can record, that's fine" (good on him!); I think their underlying rationale is perfectly sound.

akersten 5y ago
> when the officer flat-out says "yeah you can record, that's fine" (good on him!); The fact that he plays the copyrighted track is evidence that his statement about "oh, sure, of course you can record ;)" was not made in good faith. I give the officer zero benefit of the doubt here. Transparency is necessary in all police interactions in public, not just the ones that are "bad enough to excuse a little Taylor Swift." Cops can cry me a river about the internet outrage machine.
- DennisAleynikov 5y ago
  the playing of the song doesn't make the recording of the video any less factual or truthful. it would just be harder to publish on youtube itself and there are other social medias
- 015a 5y ago
  You are conflating the Court of Public Opinion with the Court of Law. The Court of Public Opinion is the court that drives teens to suicide through internet bullying, that accused the wrong man of bombing the Boston Marathon, and killing students at Sandy Hook, even suggesting Sandy Hook didn't happen. That's the internet. The standards for evidence on the internet are low, and tempers are high. Transparency in "all" public police interactions isn't necessary, just like transparency in "all" doctor interactions isn't necessary in order to judge doctor competency. Its an infuriating distraction; it gives you an excuse to be angry about everything. And moreover; media outlets fuel this outrage machine by purposefully omitting context and nuance in order to drive clicks. You believe you're using a critical eye to analyze these situations. You're not. This is undeniable, because it is difficult even for the people there, at the scene, to analyze a complex situation like these critically, to have all the information, and understand if the right call was or was not made, let alone someone sitting in a dark room in their basement a thousand miles away getting all of their information from Buzzfeed and The Verge. Its the job of the Court of Law to look past the Taylor Swift; they're held to a higher standard, just as officers themselves are. That doesn't mean mistakes aren't made. But those mistakes are not an excuse to break the system and raise tensions in every police interaction. This will only lead to more violence.
  - jfengel 5y ago
    If the goal is to reduce the violence level to the point that only the police are committing violence, then that is not a good goal. The issue here is that people have justifiable reason to think that the police themselves are breaking the law, in very brazen ways because the system that should hold them to account has broken down. When the system that maintains order breaks down, there is going to be violence, and trying to contain that violence to just the ones with the badges and guns is not a better outcome. Reducing tensions at this point must begin with police not supporting every single police act of violence, no matter how obvious. Until that happens, anything that people do will be considered "raising tensions". Since the situation is lose-lose for them, you're the one who's going to have to reconsider what outcome you want.
moate 5y ago
Bad take is bad. It's not the cop's job to do prevent this video from getting onto YoutTube. We have a whole SLEW of legislative channels that could be used to "protect" cops from people recording them. Don't want videos of cops being posted on the internet? Contact your local representative and have them sponsor a law. Also, in an environment in which trust with the police has been eroded to the point of rioting because people feel the cops are dishonest and hiding bad behavior, admitting on camera "I'm trying to hide my behavior from scrutiny" is about the worst thing you can do, and will get a national publication to pick you up. The cop has a police union, qualified immunity, and the entire law enforcement segment of the government to protect him. It's assumed that whatever his report said happened is what happened. Protesters only have cameras to prove their side of the story. (edited for spelling/grammar mistake)
- jwond 5y ago
  > Don't want videos of cops being posted on the internet? Contact your local representative and have them sponsor a law. What would a law look like that would prevent people from posting videos of police officers on the internet while also complying with the First Amendment?
  - moate 5y ago
    It wouldn't. It's impossible. People want unconstitutional things all the time though, and sometimes they even make them into laws. Then they go to the SCOTUS and lose. But you can do it.
    - floren 5y ago
      > People want unconstitutional things all the time though, and sometimes they even make them into laws. Then they go to the SCOTUS and lose. And there's no penalty for it, either. You get to suppress whatever you want for however long it takes to reach the Supreme Court, and if the law gets struck down, well, at least you stopped those abortion clinics/gun owners/protesters/whatever for 5 years and you can push through another law next month.
darkerside 5y ago
Yeah, I get that cops aren't very popular these days, but this is a very clever hack, and I like to think that the HN crowd is logical enough to appreciate it, regardless of the perpetrator.
- SauciestGNU 5y ago
  It is a clever hack, and like other zero days we need to implement a patch immediately. It is simply unacceptable that police can start playing music and prevent their (mis)conduct from being distributed on the most popular distribution channels.
  - trophycase 5y ago
    What misconduct?
    - SauciestGNU 5y ago
      None in this case, but it's a tactic that can be employed in conjunction with misconduct.
- jfengel 5y ago
  It wasn't his idea. We've known about this for months. And it didn't work. So it was neither original nor effective. There's nothing to laud. There were people who noted the cleverness of it months ago. This is merely script-kiddie stuff... and ineffective at that.
gregallan 5y ago
I think it’s a little misguided to praise the officer for allowing them to film. It would be illegal for him to prevent them from filming him performing his duties in a public place. I also find it slightly ridiculous for you to characterize citizens recording their interactions with police for their own protection as a “citizen surveillance state.” The citizens are not the state. The police here are representatives of the state and must be held to account in every interaction with civilians. I don’t deny that it’s a high-pressure situation for an individual to be in, and like you I find it hard to personally fault him for his strategy to prevent going viral. AFAIK it’s legally fine, and ethically grey depending on his exact intentions, which we can’t really know. In this case however, it’s more likely to result in a Streisand effect. Edit: on reading the rest of this thread I’m more convinced of the dubious legality of the cop’s playing music with the expectation that the recording will be made public
- 015a 5y ago
  > on reading the rest of this thread I’m more convinced of the dubious legality of the cop’s playing music with the expectation that the recording will be made public You're convinced by angry internet hobby-lawyers sitting in their Aerons taking a quick break from writing HTML? This is precisely the very low standard of evidence that the officer involved here is trying to short circuit.
  - gregallan 5y ago
    Note that I said dubious legality. I was just qualifying my earlier statement that it was legally fine. Hopefully we’ll get a legal ruling on this sooner rather than later.

by 015a 5y ago

akersten 5y ago

> when the officer flat-out says "yeah you can record, that's fine" (good on him!); The fact that he plays the copyrighted track is evidence that his statement about "oh, sure, of course you can record ;)" was not made in good faith. I give the officer zero benefit of the doubt here. Transparency is necessary in all police interactions in public, not just the ones that are "bad enough to excuse a little Taylor Swift." Cops can cry me a river about the internet outrage machine.

DennisAleynikov 5y ago
the playing of the song doesn't make the recording of the video any less factual or truthful. it would just be harder to publish on youtube itself and there are other social medias
015a 5y ago
You are conflating the Court of Public Opinion with the Court of Law. The Court of Public Opinion is the court that drives teens to suicide through internet bullying, that accused the wrong man of bombing the Boston Marathon, and killing students at Sandy Hook, even suggesting Sandy Hook didn't happen. That's the internet. The standards for evidence on the internet are low, and tempers are high. Transparency in "all" public police interactions isn't necessary, just like transparency in "all" doctor interactions isn't necessary in order to judge doctor competency. Its an infuriating distraction; it gives you an excuse to be angry about everything. And moreover; media outlets fuel this outrage machine by purposefully omitting context and nuance in order to drive clicks. You believe you're using a critical eye to analyze these situations. You're not. This is undeniable, because it is difficult even for the people there, at the scene, to analyze a complex situation like these critically, to have all the information, and understand if the right call was or was not made, let alone someone sitting in a dark room in their basement a thousand miles away getting all of their information from Buzzfeed and The Verge. Its the job of the Court of Law to look past the Taylor Swift; they're held to a higher standard, just as officers themselves are. That doesn't mean mistakes aren't made. But those mistakes are not an excuse to break the system and raise tensions in every police interaction. This will only lead to more violence.
- jfengel 5y ago
  If the goal is to reduce the violence level to the point that only the police are committing violence, then that is not a good goal. The issue here is that people have justifiable reason to think that the police themselves are breaking the law, in very brazen ways because the system that should hold them to account has broken down. When the system that maintains order breaks down, there is going to be violence, and trying to contain that violence to just the ones with the badges and guns is not a better outcome. Reducing tensions at this point must begin with police not supporting every single police act of violence, no matter how obvious. Until that happens, anything that people do will be considered "raising tensions". Since the situation is lose-lose for them, you're the one who's going to have to reconsider what outcome you want.

moate 5y ago

Bad take is bad. It's not the cop's job to do prevent this video from getting onto YoutTube. We have a whole SLEW of legislative channels that could be used to "protect" cops from people recording them. Don't want videos of cops being posted on the internet? Contact your local representative and have them sponsor a law. Also, in an environment in which trust with the police has been eroded to the point of rioting because people feel the cops are dishonest and hiding bad behavior, admitting on camera "I'm trying to hide my behavior from scrutiny" is about the worst thing you can do, and will get a national publication to pick you up. The cop has a police union, qualified immunity, and the entire law enforcement segment of the government to protect him. It's assumed that whatever his report said happened is what happened. Protesters only have cameras to prove their side of the story. (edited for spelling/grammar mistake)

jwond 5y ago
> Don't want videos of cops being posted on the internet? Contact your local representative and have them sponsor a law. What would a law look like that would prevent people from posting videos of police officers on the internet while also complying with the First Amendment?
- moate 5y ago
  It wouldn't. It's impossible. People want unconstitutional things all the time though, and sometimes they even make them into laws. Then they go to the SCOTUS and lose. But you can do it.
  - floren 5y ago
    > People want unconstitutional things all the time though, and sometimes they even make them into laws. Then they go to the SCOTUS and lose. And there's no penalty for it, either. You get to suppress whatever you want for however long it takes to reach the Supreme Court, and if the law gets struck down, well, at least you stopped those abortion clinics/gun owners/protesters/whatever for 5 years and you can push through another law next month.

darkerside 5y ago

Yeah, I get that cops aren't very popular these days, but this is a very clever hack, and I like to think that the HN crowd is logical enough to appreciate it, regardless of the perpetrator.

SauciestGNU 5y ago
It is a clever hack, and like other zero days we need to implement a patch immediately. It is simply unacceptable that police can start playing music and prevent their (mis)conduct from being distributed on the most popular distribution channels.
- trophycase 5y ago
  What misconduct?
  - SauciestGNU 5y ago
    None in this case, but it's a tactic that can be employed in conjunction with misconduct.
jfengel 5y ago
It wasn't his idea. We've known about this for months. And it didn't work. So it was neither original nor effective. There's nothing to laud. There were people who noted the cleverness of it months ago. This is merely script-kiddie stuff... and ineffective at that.

gregallan 5y ago

I think it’s a little misguided to praise the officer for allowing them to film. It would be illegal for him to prevent them from filming him performing his duties in a public place. I also find it slightly ridiculous for you to characterize citizens recording their interactions with police for their own protection as a “citizen surveillance state.” The citizens are not the state. The police here are representatives of the state and must be held to account in every interaction with civilians. I don’t deny that it’s a high-pressure situation for an individual to be in, and like you I find it hard to personally fault him for his strategy to prevent going viral. AFAIK it’s legally fine, and ethically grey depending on his exact intentions, which we can’t really know. In this case however, it’s more likely to result in a Streisand effect. Edit: on reading the rest of this thread I’m more convinced of the dubious legality of the cop’s playing music with the expectation that the recording will be made public

015a 5y ago
> on reading the rest of this thread I’m more convinced of the dubious legality of the cop’s playing music with the expectation that the recording will be made public You're convinced by angry internet hobby-lawyers sitting in their Aerons taking a quick break from writing HTML? This is precisely the very low standard of evidence that the officer involved here is trying to short circuit.
- gregallan 5y ago
  Note that I said dubious legality. I was just qualifying my earlier statement that it was legally fine. Hopefully we’ll get a legal ruling on this sooner rather than later.