Re:How WhatsApp Destroyed a Village
by schoen on Monday September 10, 2018 @12:46AM
(#17949445)
I first thought you meant that the police monitored the groups nonconsensually in order to track the residents' activities, but then I realized you probably meant that the police are actively invited to participate in the groups in order to receive reports from the residents—is that right?
[ Parent
| on HN ]
That's how it works. The local beat officer is usually invited in. I'm glad no one in my neighbourhood came up with this idea yet. It really irks me that a commercial entity dominates our public spaces to the level of bleeding street signs.
If you live in one of those neighbourhoods you either participate (meaning you are required to purchase an Android or IOS smartphone, and required to register an account with Facebook's WhatsApp) or get left out of the loop completely. So much for freedom to choose.
From what I've heard from people that do live in such neighbourhoods is that these group chats are a constant distraction of irrelevancies spammed by a handful of very active users. Successfully moderated groups of this type seem rare.