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[return to "Nextdoor ends its program for forwarding suspicions to police"]
1. throwa+Gc[view] [source] 2020-06-20 20:29:50
>>pseudo+(OP)
> Civil rights and privacy advocates have raised concerns about how the feature streamlined the reporting of suspicions about minor offenses, encouraging police to follow up on what would have otherwise been casual observations on social media.

Why is this a problem? Minor offenses are still offenses and they can often be very frustrating and problematic. They still deserve police attention where they constitute a violation of the law. Streamlining the process is a positive not negative, and the framing here just seems like these activist groups don’t want people to be held accountable.

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2. newacc+Ge[view] [source] 2020-06-20 20:44:42
>>throwa+Gc
> Minor offenses are still offenses

The problem, as is always the case, is that "minor offenses" are not equitably enforced.

So if the local white kids are hanging out at the corner of the park smoking weed, no one cares. No one posts to Nextdoor. The police don't show up. But four young hispanic men walking through the same white neighborhood (to get to a job, say) will freak someone out and a busybody post to nextdoor will end up getting them stopped. Oh, and it turns out that one of them has weed in his pocket. There's your "minor offense". It's still an offense, right? It deserves police attention?

You're looking at this with a microscope. No one is saying don't enforce boring laws. People are saying do it fairly. Nattering busybodies on Nextdoor are the opposite of fair.

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3. jquery+0q[view] [source] 2020-06-20 22:15:27
>>newacc+Ge
> Nattering busybodies on Nextdoor

What is more fair than locals choosing which stuff is bothering them?

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4. joshua+rs[view] [source] 2020-06-20 22:34:15
>>jquery+0q
When the things bothering them are "having black neighbors", I'd say most other systems are more fair.
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5. jquery+9M[view] [source] 2020-06-21 02:22:13
>>joshua+rs
You’re assuming the locals are “bad people” and making decisions on their behalf, then?
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6. joshua+iP[view] [source] 2020-06-21 03:05:44
>>jquery+9M
I'm assigning no blame. I'm giving an example of the kind of behavior that ultimately was encouraged by ND.
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7. jquery+nz2[view] [source] 2020-06-21 23:13:16
>>joshua+iP
How was ND encouraging it?
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8. joshua+5A2[view] [source] 2020-06-21 23:24:28
>>jquery+nz2
By offering this very low friction way of contacting the police, you end up enabling people to reach out to the police for minor inconveniences that they wouldn't otherwise have.

There may be noble outcomes from this, but there are also clearly negative ones. Once again, I'm not claiming it was ever ND's intent to do this. Just that in practice the design of the system enabled and tacitly encouraged these behaviors.

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