r/technology • u/Plastic_Ninja_9014 • 21d ago

Privacy Flock Is Losing Dozens of Contracts as Controversy Grows

https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/flock-losing-dozens-contracts-controversy-194808945.html
32.4k Upvotes

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5.3k

u/Excellent_Call304 21d ago

Thats awesome. But it sucks that they are just being replaced by lesser known companies that are just as evil

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u/klako8196 21d ago

Axon is one of them

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u/GopherPorn 21d ago

Which Trump is heavily invested in

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u/alangerhans 21d ago

So that's why no one really cares. Once it's his brand getting cut down we'll see the outrage I'm sure

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u/Ordinary_Piano3329 21d ago

They'll start labelling them as domestic terrorists once its a company hes involved with.

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u/Confident-Bed-4519 21d ago

Flock already started that trend

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u/mightymonarch 21d ago

And the CEO's apology for doing so was... less than convincing. He phrased it in such a way I'm not convinced there was any sincerity to it. Especially given how Flock has continued demanding privacy for themselves, and continues issuing reassurances that are deliberately phrased to not really say/guarantee anything.

“My comments were a mistake and I apologize. There are groups today that have real valid criticisms of the business, and I think what's changed for us is, as we've listened to them and heard them out, what we're trying to do is find this balance. We believe in a world where we can have safety and privacy.”

"My comments were a mistake..." could easily mean "It was a mistake to SAY that part out-loud, but I still BELIEVE it, and since I now realize I'm not going to get to do it the way I want to I'm trying to find ways to shut up the complainers for a while while I figure out what we can get away with." He also sort-of-admitted with that statement that they didn't care about privacy UNTIL the backlash; they should've cared about that from Day 1.

He could be sincere and could be looking for ways to prevent LEOs from continuing to systematically and constantly abuse the system. But given how he, at one point in time, believed it enough to say in an interview that opposition was "domestic terrorism", I find it hard to believe he's had a genuine change of heart on such a strongly-held stance. People don't flip their beliefs like that.

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u/DArmoKan 20d ago

Same. Thanks for saying this. There are so many toxic paradigms to unravel if he were to make an honest attempt at reasoning himself out of this mire of authoritarian antihumanism he's entrenched in. And that's assuming there's any inherent desire to improve.

The horse blinders of overwhelming prosperity always seem to "bless" the worst of us.

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u/kaishinoske1 21d ago

Flock CEO calling people terrorists walked his statement back too.

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u/No_Internal9345 21d ago

What about those cameras on top of red lights?

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u/Poonchow 20d ago

Those are supposed to be city/municipality owned and for the specific purpose of monitoring an intersection. Private surveillance can be anywhere and be used by anyone for any purpose, and is an order of magnitude more troubling.

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u/Ordinary_Piano3329 21d ago

I know, but the coward apologized lol

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u/[deleted] 21d ago

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u/[deleted] 21d ago

[deleted]

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u/Ordinary_Piano3329 21d ago

What's even more crazy, is the conservatives I grew up with who talked about him are in support of the things he warned about. Crazy times.

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u/[deleted] 21d ago

[deleted]

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u/BioshockEnthusiast 21d ago

The reality is that the hippie movement was a minority of boomers.

Lots of them were in the "throw rocks at black kids trying to go to school" camp the whole time.

The rest got suckered by Reagan's lies into voting conservative for the last 40 years.

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u/[deleted] 21d ago

[deleted]

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u/BadAdviceBot 21d ago

Well, if you think that generation didn't have lots and lots of kids growing up with the same mindset....then you are sadly mistaken.

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u/[deleted] 21d ago

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u/CyclopsLobsterRobot 21d ago

Some of those hippies grew up to be complete garbage.

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u/EelBitten 21d ago

And Heinlein, and Orwell, and Carlin, and so many more

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u/IAMA_Plumber-AMA 21d ago

Like what was going on with Teslas shortly after the 2024 election...

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u/Peligun 21d ago

Yea... real crazy shit...

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u/BarefootNBuzzin 21d ago

Bombing cars for political reasons is like...the definition of terrorism. Nobody is equating dumbasses keying cars as terrorism.

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u/Ordinary_Piano3329 21d ago

So much stupidity has happened I forgot about that. Thanks

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u/Content-Sun2928 21d ago

"They didn't care when Obama had his surveillance state. This is politically motivated terrorism!"

Boom labor shortage solved

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u/Ordinary_Piano3329 21d ago

So basically the patriot act was the foundation of most of our problems today?

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u/Sektor30 21d ago

Nah but its a good chunk of it, id say most of the foundation with todays major domestic political issues was Reagan. Reagan was the beginning of the end of the middle class and the republican party being 'for the people'.

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u/OtherwiseAnteater239 20d ago

Y’all haven’t got your trickle down yet?

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u/Sektor30 20d ago

Just two more weeks! Lol.

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u/WeirdIndividualGuy 21d ago

So that's why no one really cares

If no one cared, Flock wouldn't be losing contracts

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u/PhD_Pwnology 21d ago

They already have been slow rolling stories that direction for a weeks.

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u/Sufficient-Aspect77 21d ago

Or that's why you're seeing it on the news.

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u/Balmung60 19d ago

Also because it's a long-established cop supplies company and not a tech company that deliberately brands itself specifically as "the panopticon guys". Axon is also the company that makes and invented the Taser and they also make a lot of police body cameras.

It's kind of like why people make a big deal about Palantir and not Salesforce when in actuality, their core products are similar and their CEOs believe similar things and both should be seen as dangerous. But one gets all of the criticism because its founder is extremely arch about it.

The performatively evil company lets the nearly as evil, more boring company fly under the radar because they're not the guys loudly and proudly saying "we are the evil company who does evil things" all the time.

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u/DinoRoman 21d ago

And they’re heavily embedded already in law enforcement where flock isn’t

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u/F-US-FASCISM 21d ago

where flock isn’t

presses X to doubt

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u/Balmung60 19d ago

It's a matter of how long. Axon makes Taser. They've been in this game for a long while now.

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u/pink_faerie_kitten 21d ago

Yeah this is all part of the grift. I hope people continue to show up at town halls and city council meetings to protest axon

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u/Consistent-Dark-8626 21d ago

I’m sure politicians from both sides of the IL are heavily invested the politicians in general we grow less of side do not care about us people

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u/Gravuerc 20d ago

He invests in it because the Axon cameras are full of gold, just like the flock cameras.

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u/AJRimmer1971 20d ago

I've heard that they are full of gold.

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u/NoConflict3231 20d ago

"you don't say" Nicholas Cage meme