(TikTok screencap)

  • InvalidName2@lemmy.zip
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    34 minutes ago

    They aren’t common in the places I typically shop, at least not yet.

    So, around here, when you see these, you know you’re in an unsafe part of town, so they’re essentially a huge advertisement to go shop some place safer and nicer. The privacy invasion aspect of it isn’t even really the biggest factor in regards to where I spend my money.

  • WesternInfidels@feddit.online
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    5 hours ago

    The first time I saw one of these was at a Fourth of July gathering in a public park. I saw the high blue lights and I figured it was marking some kind of portable police resource center. I had imagined some basic first aid and some officers ready for emergency assistance. I had imagined something that was partly a service and partly community outreach. I had imagined something with positive features.

    I was so disappointed to find out it was just cameras. Quite an emotional trip in my head there, from “We’re here to help!” to “We’re watching you, fuckers” in the space of a moment.

    But I guess the cops in my suburb are no better than the cops in any other suburb.

    • nek0d3r@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      6 hours ago

      Yeah we’ve got a bunch of these in our neighborhood. It’s a rundown area but this just makes it worse. I’d love nothing more than to mask up and smash this shit

      • Fluke@feddit.uk
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        2 hours ago

        *Mask up and disassemble that shit for parts on the spot. Make it serve the people, rather than spy on them.

  • Francislewwis@lemmy.world
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    4 hours ago

    Technology like this always brings up the balance between safety and privacy. It’s important that communities keep having open conversations about where that line should be.

    • Zink@programming.dev
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      4 hours ago

      It isn’t necessarily a linear correlation where you can pick the cutoff that best suits your personality and politics.

      The technology and the act of surveillance don’t just slide you up the safety/privacy slope. They carry their own risks that can REDUCE safety while still paying the privacy trade off. And it is not predictable.

      And that (plus caring about people) is why I don’t support the Leopards Eating Faces coalition even though I’m an old white educated native-born male USian.

  • Reygle@lemmy.world
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    6 hours ago

    I’m not saying anyone should do it but in the photo it appears there’s a drainage ditch nearby. It would be real shame if someone with a ski mask and a plateless truck were to relocate it there.

  • Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world
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    11 hours ago

    There’s one of these in a shopping center around me. I flip it off every time I see it.

    I mean, I deliberately drive near it, stop, roll down my window, put my arm out, and flip it off very intentionally.

    I don’t care if it knows me. I’ve made no secret of my hatred for authoritarianism throughout my life. I’ve gone to more protests than I can count. Besides, if authorities really wanted to do something to me, they’d readily make things up anyway. They don’t need an excuse, so I might as well express myself.

    This shit is dystopian as fuck and every time I see it or it blasts out its message about us being watched, it boils my blood.

    Fuck it all. This is not okay.

    • MonkeMischief@lemmy.today
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      5 hours ago

      . . .flip it off very intentionally.

      Heehee I’m kinda glad I’m not alone here. I walk my neighborhood and people install those STUPID cameras facing the sidewalk to catch EVERYONE walking by, that whistle at you, or say “you are being recorded!”

      I give it the finger without looking at it basically as a reflex now. I’ve never even flipped someone off in traffic, I’ve been told I have the patience of a saint.

      But surveillance capitalism and stupid paranoid suburbanites satisfying their nosy-neighbor compulsions is definitely a line.

      We’ve got those stupid towers all over the place here too. Construction sites, parking lots.

      Freaking absurd. I’m upset that it’s the best crime deterrent they can come up with, because I suppose skulky fellows lurking around dark parking lots aren’t preferable either.