This is such a strange piece to me, what was he supposed to do? Take responsibility for people's abusive behavior that don't work for him? His platform was being abused by powerful people he doesn't control, risking major contracts in the process and he's in major damage control mode.
Instead of focusing on the fact that police were caught abusing Flock, the MO of this piece is to focus on the guy calling out the people abusing his platform as if he's in the wrong. Anybody in his position would've done the exact same thing.
I think Flock (and similar systems) are actively harmful to society and Langley (and therefore Flock) specifically is trying to change society into something that is terrifying.
Now, he's trying to distract people from the inherently abusive nature of ubiquitous surveillance by pointing to other people behaving badly. It's just PR bullshit. He's trying to figure out how he can get people docile enough to accept his dystopian vision.
I completely agree with you, but it's not like this piece is any less dystopian. It pretty openly casts police as victims and seems to not want to acknowledge that the police state at its core is very unpopular in the US for some pretty compelling reasons.
Flock's continued existence depends on the idea that those in law enforcement provisioned access to the data platform will use it responsibility. The evidence is robust this will never occur, and therefore the platform simply cannot exist because we cannot trust law enforcement to use it within the bounds of the legal framework, regardless of whatever controls Flock attempts to put in place at the platform level. This would of course be disappointing news to the CEO of such a platform, considering the time and resources invested to date, similar to the public collectively burning your equity lottery ticket. Such is the risk of attempting to speed run a startup in direct conflict with constitutional and privacy rights. Sometimes you win (Airbnb and Uber), sometimes you don't.
I'm not a fan of Langley but this is just whinging about having the slightest of restrictions put on your toys.
This is such a strange piece to me, what was he supposed to do? Take responsibility for people's abusive behavior that don't work for him? His platform was being abused by powerful people he doesn't control, risking major contracts in the process and he's in major damage control mode.
Instead of focusing on the fact that police were caught abusing Flock, the MO of this piece is to focus on the guy calling out the people abusing his platform as if he's in the wrong. Anybody in his position would've done the exact same thing.
I think Flock (and similar systems) are actively harmful to society and Langley (and therefore Flock) specifically is trying to change society into something that is terrifying.
Now, he's trying to distract people from the inherently abusive nature of ubiquitous surveillance by pointing to other people behaving badly. It's just PR bullshit. He's trying to figure out how he can get people docile enough to accept his dystopian vision.
I completely agree with you, but it's not like this piece is any less dystopian. It pretty openly casts police as victims and seems to not want to acknowledge that the police state at its core is very unpopular in the US for some pretty compelling reasons.
Flock's continued existence depends on the idea that those in law enforcement provisioned access to the data platform will use it responsibility. The evidence is robust this will never occur, and therefore the platform simply cannot exist because we cannot trust law enforcement to use it within the bounds of the legal framework, regardless of whatever controls Flock attempts to put in place at the platform level. This would of course be disappointing news to the CEO of such a platform, considering the time and resources invested to date, similar to the public collectively burning your equity lottery ticket. Such is the risk of attempting to speed run a startup in direct conflict with constitutional and privacy rights. Sometimes you win (Airbnb and Uber), sometimes you don't.