Re:Citizen pays New Yorkers to livestream crime scenes
by aiisahik on Monday July 26, 2021 @03:50PM
(#27964482)
Oh totally agree that they are bating you into being a frightened animal holed up in your house. So i turn off the notifications and only go on the app if i am bored or if there's something happening locally i want to know more about.
The citizen app is especially egregious but it's not the only app that does this. Unfortunately all social apps that rely on engagement have to create a false perception of the world in order to maximize engagement. The government is not going to regulate the UX design here. It's up to the individual to learn of their dystopian reality.
I personally don't really want to know about every single crime but if I had the choice I would choose for every single crime to be captured on video. You can call it a police state or vigilante state but I'm fine with that.
A filtered (only the worst things get reported) dubiously-accurate (lots of "heard something that sounded like gunshots") view of a large geographic area (they sent me stuff covering a much larger area than I would've been concerned of) isn't "the truth of who we are," it's just a window into how some people are feeling, presented by a company that stands to make more money if they can make you feel more concerned.