4 ms·

Flock seems to be pretty unpopular, internet-wide, in bipartisan tech/very online worlds; feels like 90% to me. Where things start coming into balance a bit mo

by rconti 2mo ago

Flock seems to be pretty unpopular, internet-wide, in bipartisan tech/very online worlds; feels like 90% to me. Where things start coming into balance a bit more is among the Nextdoor paranoia crowd.

fckgw 2mo ago
Flock is popular with 1) local police departments and 2) local city councils who don't want to upset the police It's pretty unpopular with mainly everyone else.
- stickfigure 2mo ago
  If you spend time in neighborhood groups like nextdoor and local facebook groups, you find plenty of support for Flock. I'd even go so far as to say a majority. This doesn't have the scientific rigor of a random sample, but it's enough to convince me that the anti-Flock voices on HN are not representative of the public at large. And might not even be representative of HN.
  - frm88 2mo ago
    John Oliver made his last episode of Last Week Tonight about surverillance with particular focus on Flock and its many abuses. Last I checked it had 1.5m views on Youtube. Breaking Points had an episode on Flock yesterday featuring a member of the management calling anti-Flock people domestic terrorists. When I watched it on YT it had 80K views. EDIT: here's a list of 30+ cities that cancelled their contracts with Flock because of above reasons: https://stateofsurveillance.org/news/flock-safety-cancel-wave-30-cities-alpr-surveillance-contracts-2026/ https://stateofsurveillance.org/news/flock-safety-cancel-wav...
    - mlrtime 2mo ago
      John Oliver is also one of the most biased sources of news you could possibly absorb. He's a comedian playing the part of an opinion news reporter. No different than Fox news hosts, which are equally biased towards their viewers preferences for ad money. I respect John Stewart for moving more towards real politics than playing the "I'm just a comedian" role.
      - stickfigure 2mo ago
        This is exactly right. I find John Oliver entertaining, but I'm acutely aware that he gets eyeballs by stoking outrage. And the few times he touched on subjects I know something about, I felt he was being misleading (at best). John Oliver is popular in a certain political niche (which includes me, btw). I don't think he's representative of the population as a whole. I'm not representative of the population as a whole either. 30 cities have cancelled Flock. Thousands haven't. What lesson am I supposed to draw from that?
      - EasyMark 2mo ago
        yet he backs up what he says with sources, unlike Fox Talking Heads shows. He clearly has a left bias, but at least he usually has firm grounding and examples, unlike the nuts on Fox, OAN, etc

by rconti 2mo ago

Flock seems to be pretty unpopular, internet-wide, in bipartisan tech/very online worlds; feels like 90% to me. Where things start coming into balance a bit more is among the Nextdoor paranoia crowd.

fckgw 2mo ago

Flock is popular with 1) local police departments and 2) local city councils who don't want to upset the police It's pretty unpopular with mainly everyone else.

stickfigure 2mo ago
If you spend time in neighborhood groups like nextdoor and local facebook groups, you find plenty of support for Flock. I'd even go so far as to say a majority. This doesn't have the scientific rigor of a random sample, but it's enough to convince me that the anti-Flock voices on HN are not representative of the public at large. And might not even be representative of HN.
- frm88 2mo ago
  John Oliver made his last episode of Last Week Tonight about surverillance with particular focus on Flock and its many abuses. Last I checked it had 1.5m views on Youtube. Breaking Points had an episode on Flock yesterday featuring a member of the management calling anti-Flock people domestic terrorists. When I watched it on YT it had 80K views. EDIT: here's a list of 30+ cities that cancelled their contracts with Flock because of above reasons: https://stateofsurveillance.org/news/flock-safety-cancel-wave-30-cities-alpr-surveillance-contracts-2026/ https://stateofsurveillance.org/news/flock-safety-cancel-wav...
  - mlrtime 2mo ago
    John Oliver is also one of the most biased sources of news you could possibly absorb. He's a comedian playing the part of an opinion news reporter. No different than Fox news hosts, which are equally biased towards their viewers preferences for ad money. I respect John Stewart for moving more towards real politics than playing the "I'm just a comedian" role.
    - stickfigure 2mo ago
      This is exactly right. I find John Oliver entertaining, but I'm acutely aware that he gets eyeballs by stoking outrage. And the few times he touched on subjects I know something about, I felt he was being misleading (at best). John Oliver is popular in a certain political niche (which includes me, btw). I don't think he's representative of the population as a whole. I'm not representative of the population as a whole either. 30 cities have cancelled Flock. Thousands haven't. What lesson am I supposed to draw from that?
    - EasyMark 2mo ago
      yet he backs up what he says with sources, unlike Fox Talking Heads shows. He clearly has a left bias, but at least he usually has firm grounding and examples, unlike the nuts on Fox, OAN, etc