what a dystopian article and idea. Homeowners should be prevented from sending Ring video footage to police because there is a risk that these videos might be used to report innocent racial minorities to the police. The presence of this risk apparently outweighs the obvious benefit that one can send videos of real criminals to police. What's next, not being able to call 911?
Criminals are victimizers, not victims. It is UNETHICAL to coerce people into not reporting a crime because of perceived identity-politics based risks. It causes increased harm in the world because criminals who escape are free to victimize again, and do. The authors of this article, and editors at Wired, are participating in unethical, immoral behavior and they should be ashamed of themselves!
I think I understand that you want to make it harder for people to report a video to the police, because you believe these people will call in false reports on racial minorities. There will be some people who will not be able to figure out how to get a video of a crime to police because of that change. That is unethical.
> There will be some people who will not be able to figure out how to get a video of a crime to police because of that change. That is unethical.
No matter how rare that is? It has to be as easy as we can possibly make it, otherwise it's immoral? That other comment is right, by that logic we should share all information with police always.
I don’t think the “logic” you’re pointing out really tracks, to be honest. We should share information with police when we have reasonable belief that a crime is being committed.
If you overshare with the police and none of it is evidence of an actual crime they are going to stop looking. They simply don't have time to watch thousands of videos sent in by paranoid old folks.
They'll stop looking at all of it, but if you give police access to giant databases of information they will search through it to get info they shouldn't have.
You can. Can the average Ring system user? My wife, bless her, struggles with tech and wouldn’t know what to do. Maybe there’s a video save button, then what? You email it to a police station email address? Where would she find a police station’s email address? Maybe she calls them and they tell her. What if the video file is too large for her email client? That’s a road block right there for her, she’d come to me for help with. What if I’m not available? What if there’s simply not much time for me to trim the video file and send it in pieces?
This is mostly whataboutism, but then again, the other side of this argument kind of is too. Sure maybe I send the cops a video, and maybe they recognize the person and go to their home. What are then the odds that the person is discriminated against or presumed guilty by the officer?
Anyway, the one click button is a feature that I don’t think deserves the flack. If the police are doing their jobs, they won’t just go in guns blazing on a guy just because he was snooping around my parked car in the driveway and I shot the video over.
I think I see where you’re coming from here. Presuming that the police are incapable of performing their job without killing innocent people. We see a lot of that on the tv these days, so I understand your perspective. But if we presume that the police are incapable of performing their jobs, then you’re saying it’s never really worth involving them at all. And that’s an even bigger problem.
>you’re saying it’s never really worth involving them at all.
This is the reality for many millions of Americans. I have people in my own family for whom police interaction of virtually any kind will make their situation worse time. There are neighborhoods and communities where the idea of calling the police and actually expecting to receive help will get you laughed out of the room, as everyone in the room knows from actual experience it isn't true. A third of their local taxes go to a thing that will at best never help them.
It isn't by accident that nations have travel advisories warning their citizens about American police.
The idea that policing (or at least anything we would recognize as policing today) is necessary in society is from a universal opinion and certainly has not been the reality for most of human civilization.
Maybe not having police worked when the population density was like half a person per square kilometer, but with people packed up into tight spaces as they do now, I think you’re living a dream.
In that case, I can’t think of a better advertisement for Ring. A doorbell camera with police on speed dial. Criminals know not to mess around because if Ring sees them doing anything funny an internationally recognized death squad will come knocking.
Criminals are victimizers, not victims. It is UNETHICAL to coerce people into not reporting a crime because of perceived identity-politics based risks. It causes increased harm in the world because criminals who escape are free to victimize again, and do. The authors of this article, and editors at Wired, are participating in unethical, immoral behavior and they should be ashamed of themselves!