Comment by dirasieb
4 days ago
ok so let's just put aside chinese companies! ring is an american company, should people's ring cameras be vandalized because ring might share their data with the american government?
4 days ago
ok so let's just put aside chinese companies! ring is an american company, should people's ring cameras be vandalized because ring might share their data with the american government?
I have not vandalized any Ring cameras, but I have paid to replace those installed by friends and family and have those replaced shredded as part of an electronics recycling waste stream. "Think globally, act locally" sort of thing.
i don't think the people destroying flock cameras are open to the idea of going through the legal process to replace them with alternatives that have better privacy, something (maybe the fact that they currently are vandalizing them) tells me that they are just interested in vandalizing them
Flock cameras are different, they take advantage of laws that have not kept pace with technology while being colocated and operated in public spaces, to where you are forced to live in a corporate surveillance state for Flock Group's enterprise value and potential shareholder returns. And so, destruction of the devices is all that is left available to them (if their jurisdiction opts to not remove them, as many have done [1]). Somewhat silly to blame humans who want privacy (arguably a human right [2]) just so the CEO of Flock can get wealthy (and YC can get liquidity) at IPO, no?
The human is doing what you would expect the human to do when faced with limited options in an operating environment that is not favorable to them. Crime has been trending down for some time [3], Flock cameras are a business driven on fear like Shotspotter, where the results are questionable at best and you're selling to the unsophisticated.
[1] https://www.npr.org/2026/02/17/nx-s1-5612825/flock-contracts...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_privacy
[3] https://time.com/7357500/crime-homicide-rate-violent-propert... | https://archive.today/vMACL
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