After a Loss in Vancouver, Troubling Signals of Citizen Surveillance

[romp]

Last night's post-Stanley Cup riots left me disappointed in my community. Not my local community in Vancouver: after a decade living here, I can no longer be surprised by the intensity of this city's hockey madness. And to be fair, most of my fellow Vancouverites took the loss in stride. It was only a handful of drunken hooligans who turned the let

Comments

[freezer]

So... using technology to observe and identify lawbreakers is a bad thing? I didn't know "Stop Snitchin'" had made it to Canada.

[jwaneeta]

THIS

[sunhawk]

I am much less comfortable when I think about other ways that crowdsourced surveillance has been or might be put to use: By pro-life demonstrators posting photos of women going into clinics that provide abortions.

I get that she's trying to be clever and make a point about the subjective nature of morality but cheap shots like this ("OH LOOK, THIS IS A THING THAT SOME PPL THINK IS IMMORAL, JUST LIKE RIOTING AND BURNING CARS COULD BE AMBIGUOUS MORALLY PAT MY SMART BRAIN PAT IT") just makes me see red. Also, shut the fuck up.

Overall, slippery slope argument is slippery, no?

[chimbleysweep]

If you get caught committing a crime, too bad. Maybe don't do illegal shit if you don't want to be caught doing illegal shit.

And anti-choicers already use the internet to shame people. Governments already crack down on Twitter. Employers already fire people based on internet life. But how any of this compares to reporting crimes like burning cars and assaulting people, I'm not sure.

The internet is not safe. This is not hide and seek.

And, like, where and when has social media been a happy community? What about bullying? And sexual assault? And stalking? That all happens online every fucking second.

[ahkna]

Ugh. This article.

Anything that starts by defending assholes rioting over a game is going to get stupid real fast.

[romp]

Yeah, I think that's a big part of the issue. This is being examined by the BCCLA and people involved with intellectual freedom and, in my experience, they tend to ask good questions.