In this case the worst that happens is one police officer in Buffalo is misidentified for another police officer in buffalo. Police officers are supposed to be easily identifiable.
All this concern falls squarely back on Buffalo PD. It should not be the concern of civilians being victimized by police brutality.
It is not like it has a flower delivery guy is mistaken as a violent police officer. Worst case is misidentifying which officer it is and again that is the responsibility of the police department.
Given everything going on being worried about fingering the wrong police officer is extremely weak.
By the way I agree that his address etc need not be posted here but it is entirely reasonable his name be shared. If other information is inadvertently shared, I don’t see it as a big deal.
I don’t understand Jman’s position on this, he knows every person brought to him to be prosecuted whether they got prosecuted or not, got their information published publicly. I don’t know how you deny being party to that process.
Unfortunately you have flagged more posts on this site than everyone else combined. It might be time to consider if it is the right fit for your extremely high strung sensitivities in a number of areas.
It is pretty insane one or two people can censor this forum on their own.
Regarding the impact of spreading this info specifically on UP: I think people are downplaying our role. I haven’t seen the original tweet but I’m assuming it came from an account that typically doesn’t see the top trending list. In any case it didn’t spread because of the author’s reach, it spread because people shared it through their networks. We are a node in those networks. I regularly share information I learned about from this forum and I’m sure others do the same, so our reach is exponentially greater than just our user base. That reach may still be insignificant but it is only through millions of similar networks that this information gets out. We should be thinking about whether we want to be part of that, not about the actual value of our contribution.
Regarding the morality of doxxing shitty cops: Do it. There is zero institutional accountability for police. That’s not an exaggeration. It takes organized collective power to force justice. It’s not a moral issue, it’s an issue of power. Don’t cede the public’s only power because you’re not comfortable wielding it.
I completely understand why Jman feels the way he does.
When you spread someone’s information like that, you want people to be able to go to that address and do things. That’s a step beyond putting someone’s name and face out there.
If that’s not what you want, then you haven’t thought things through. I have thought things through and I am fine with doing such things, but I also understand why other people would be uncomfortable with it and out of respect for users of this forum I wouldn’t use this site to pursue that sort of agenda unless this were the only place to do it, but I also wouldn’t be adverse to linking to a tweet about this story, then noting that his information is being spread in the replies.
The catharsis of the moment wasn’t worth this derail and the taking away of any attention from all the brutality the cops are inflicting. But at the same time you peeps need to get that this is a rando board read by 50 people. My post was probably read by 10 none of them in buffalo or likely to go there.
When you’re this outraged over a few people knowing a guys address especially when it’s just a link to a post that’s probably been read by tens or hundreds of thousands you’re wasting outrage that could be channeled more productively.
Facism is coming. If we want to prevent it we are going to have to do lots of things that make us morally uncomfortable. Start practicing now because you don’t have long. Practicing on this board is a good idea because the stakes are basically non existent.
I think this is where I am, though I see reasonable arguments on many sides. It’s a difficult situation.
The main issue I see are if people are sharing the address of someone that is unrelated to the situation (e.g. if his real address is 784 Fake Street and someone spreads 748 Fake Street). That could lead to some very bad outcomes.
I’m reminded of the time a bunch of people on reddit misidentified the Boston Marathon bomber.
I’m honestly on the fence about the morality of doxxing some cops but this is a really bad take. If something is right or wrong, it’s right or wrong regardless if it effects one person or millions. It’s completely irrelevant if it was read by 50 people. Also outrage isn’t a non-renewable resource, but the moral high ground is non-renewable.
There’s no such thing as objective right and wrong. The “moral high ground” can be a useful tool if enough people believe in it but when it loses it’s efficacy other applications of power need to be used. I have a subjective set of standards and I want to persuade,trick or force people to conform to them. So do you, so do the cops so does everybody. The cops (essentially an extension of the ruling class) are willing to use rhetoric, intimidation, violence and murder to impose their standards, what are you willing to do?
I don’t think anyone’s arguing that it’s normally morally right to publish someone’s name and address without their consent, but that it might be close to morally neutral or even morally good in a highly imperfect world where that information has already been published, and where information about other groups of people yet to be convicted of any offences (that make it easy to find their address) is regularly made public by the class (group) of people committing offences who don’t want their own details made public.