A really odd post. I am open to the argument but don’t think Mozilla makes it here. The only piece of evidence they cite for harm— hyperlinked to the phrase “facilitate racial profiling”— leads to a think piece by someone a little creeped out by posts on Nextdoor, which doesn’t mention Ring at all.<p>I get that people don’t love surveillance. But the evidence is not here that a homeowner or renter’s decision to install a cloud-connected security camera on private property makes them or their community less safe. Unless you make a slew of assumptions that go undefended here, namely: cops are natural aggressors, having these cameras will attract cops, and the harm which these aggressive cops are likely to cause when attracted is greater than the combined deterrent effect of the camera’s presence against other crime + their value for genuine investigative work on crimes which were not deterred. Again, I’m open to the argument, but you need to present really good evidence, not just virtue signal. Because I don’t like getting packages stolen off my porch, and Ring seems like a straightforward way to prevent that.
Keep in mind all Amazon/Ring are doing is making it a bit easier for users and the police to share this data.<p>I have Nest cameras and have shared footage with the police on numerous occasions.<p>Unless these camera companies deny me access to my footage, they can't do anything to prevent me from choosing to share it.
Cameras record facts. What if body cam makers stopped providing police body cams?<p>I can see not sharing the videos to the public, who are notorious for bad and racist judgement, but if the police are racist, that's a police problem, not an evidence problem.
There's no way that Ring is going to stop people from sharing videos.<p>But making it easy to push a button to submit video to police does enable casual racism.<p>"Oh, there's a suspicious person, I'll submit this video to the police. <i>Click</i>" That person has made a judgement based on looks alone. If it were harder to submit the video (download, attach to email, look up police email address, etc) then there'd be a lot less of that.<p>And for people who are serious about sharing video with the police, those extra steps aren't really an impediment.<p>In short, I think their hearts were in the right places, but the ramifications weren't fully thought out here.
citations needed did an incredible episode on the porch pirate narrative. Listen to Episode 97: Porch Pirate Panic and the Paranoid Racism of Snitch Apps by Citations Needed Podcast on #SoundCloud
<a href="https://soundcloud.com/citationsneeded/episode-97-porch-pirate-panic-and-the-paranoid-racism-of-snitch-apps" rel="nofollow">https://soundcloud.com/citationsneeded/episode-97-porch-pira...</a>
Why is Mozilla getting involved here at all? I would rather my browser manufacturer stay out of politics and activism. It is a customer’s choice to share footage with the police. Why wouldn’t we want to help police identify criminals more quickly?
I support this piecemeal protest, but ultimately we really just need to defund and abolish the police in the US as they are known today and replace them with a new and different organization dedicated to public safety, that is actually legally required to help people (the police are not), and that has huge consequences for integrity failures such as lying.