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Facebook Apologizes For 'Year In Review' Photos 218
Facebook this year showed users a compilation of photos drawn from their own gallery of uploaded images, but the automatic nature of the collation and display of those photos inspired the need for an apology on Facebook's part to at least one reader who was upset by the compiled pictures. That may sound silly, but even innocent data-mashing can touch real nerves.
"Eric Meyer, a web design consultant and writer, is one of those people. Earlier this year, he lost his daughter to brain cancer on her sixth birthday. For that reason, Meyer wrote in a blog post, he had actively avoided looking at previews of his own automatically generated summary post.
But Facebook put a personalized prompt advertising the feature in his newsfeed, he wrote, prominently featuring the face of his dead daughter -- surrounded by what appears to be clip art figures having a party."
Millions used this... one complained. (Score:2, Interesting)
Is this seriously how we want our lives run?
Or do we want Facebook even deeper into our personal tish so their algorithm can "get it right" next time?
Re:Millions used this... one complained. (Score:5, Insightful)
Or do we want Facebook even deeper into our personal tish so their algorithm can "get it right" next time?
If for you, the answer is "no", than don't use Facebook.
Problem solved.
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My favorite was being told, in detail, exactly what I felt about something, by somebody who knew me only superficially from that particular forum. I don't think I've seen such an arrogant comment before or since.
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We put pictures of things and people in facebook because we want to remember them or enjoy reviewing life experiences. It is our choice. I was delighted with the compilation in my Facebook because the appropriate comments making them special, were also included in the year in review. If someone passes away and we share this on Facebook, for our own history, then it is there to either heal us or to celebrate the life of the one in the picture. We can take the picture out of the review if we want to; we can a
Re:Millions used this... one complained. (Score:5, Interesting)
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Wow, quite the twist at the end there. I thought this quote was going to be from Dick Chaney.
Re:Millions used this... one complained. (Score:4, Interesting)
I didn't complain but I found some of the pictures it unearthed to be painful reminders, the early part of the year was lousy for me individually which evolved to be generally fantastic. Nevertheless, I think it's legit to complain and remind them that we upload pictures for a number of reasons, and the emotions attached to them change a lot over a year. Complaining in the form of feedback is perfectly acceptable. It's the incessant lawsuits and mass media editorials that wear on our nerves.
I think the reasonable solution is to make this an optional feature that they advertise for instead of just dump on your page. Even allow you to choose the photos to show and save for posterity.
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I take photographs each year at SXSW, just walking the street and looking for interesting people. Many of those people pose for me when they see the camera. Facebook picked one of those pictures for the cover of my album, so apparently they think my year is summed up by a group of people I don't know, one of which is giving a fake blowjob to a green balloon dildo.
I didn't share the album with my friends and family - or open it at all.
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I didn't complain but I found some of the pictures it unearthed to be painful reminders, the early part of the year was lousy for me individually which evolved to be generally fantastic. Nevertheless, I think it's legit to complain and remind them that we upload pictures for a number of reasons, and the emotions attached to them change a lot over a year. Complaining in the form of feedback is perfectly acceptable. It's the incessant lawsuits and mass media editorials that wear on our nerves.
I think the reasonable solution is to make this an optional feature that they advertise for instead of just dump on your page. Even allow you to choose the photos to show and save for posterity.
I agree. The photo on mine was completely innocuous but I'd still rather it never showed up.
Facebook seems to have forgotten the fact that they're a social network, people tend to care about the social signals they send out, and the year in review sends out a message on their behalf that they may not like.
I have my own standard for things I like to post, some random photo from my feed surrounded by tacky dancing figures isn't the kind of message I'd send out or want associated with myself. It's not a big de
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I didn't complain but I found some of the pictures it unearthed to be painful reminders,
Facebook decided my best "year in review" photo was one of my car accident. Sure I took a screenshot and used it as a joke but I can imagine how people being show pictures of their dead child would upset them. Facebook at least acknowledged that have removed it for now, as of a few hours ago Facebook is no longer showing me the mangled back end of a DC5S.
Also, I'm pretty sure more than one person complained. Its only one getting media attention.
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Complaining in the form of feedback is perfectly acceptable.
Absolutely. Successful businesses generally prefer customers to complain than to have them leave without saying anything. Complaints provide data they can use to improve their service and retain customers. Of course, you can't please everyone, and sometimes you choose not to make changes to please dissatisfied customers because they're too costly or they would displease even more customers, but with the complaints you have more information to make those choices.
There was a good book on this topic many years
Online life..... (Score:4, Insightful)
Terrible that these things happen...
Yet another example that living in online world, you must be ready to always face what you leave behind.
My hopes are that ppl really understood this really simple thing.
It may not make a difference now what you post or do, yet in 5-10-20 years, it might be a huge thing in individuals life.
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Don't worry only old people use Facebook anymore. Young kids don't want to be on the same social networks as their parents and so use other things.
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This is not a symptom of online life. It just happened to be Facebook who brought up the memory this time, next time it maybe a polaroid found behind the couch or a drink conversation between friends.
Your advice is not without warrent but it should apply to life in general not to online life only.
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Wrong. One of these is happenstance. One of them is not.
the important question (Score:1)
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of course they do, data is their business. They don't give a shit about your family, they want to sell your profile to advertisers. That is it.
shocker (Score:5, Insightful)
You voluntarily hand over your privacy to a group with a long history of treating your life as their product. And then you act shocked when they take liberties with what they feel is theirs....
I find it hard to feel sorry for people who complain. Welcome to the flipside of being able to tell people that you passed gas while lunching at Starbucks with the press of a button. *yawn*
Re:shocker (Score:4, Insightful)
The answer from the Facebook guy is pretty good:
"It's valuable feedback," Gheller said. "We can do better -- I'm very grateful he took the time in his grief to write the blog post."
It's like when the clerk at the convenience store looks at the nudie mags and large bag of cheetos that you are buying and tells you "have a nice evening" on your way out. You know there's more to it than a polite goodbye but you can't prove it.
Re:shocker (Score:5, Insightful)
Well you don't have to be a psychic to know what he's thinking: "How can we get our hands on some more metadata so we show users photos they want to remember?" Do you know what marketers did when they started getting too good at recognizing changes in shopping patterns like women being pregnant and consumers felt it was creepy? They made coupons with anti-offers, like next to the baby gear they were trying to sell you they'd put a lawn mower. That way users felt it was random and then it was okay. Besides that'd probably tie in well with their advertising, what mood you're in is probably very related to what ads you're susceptible to at the moment.
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Mine showed a photo I was tagged in... (Score:1, Interesting)
Mine showed a photo that someone (or maybe even Facebook's automatic tagging thingie) had tagged me in, even though I was not in it. I'd just posted the thing without previewing it because I figured what the hell.
Anyway, that photo was one that some girl had taken at a party I was not even at, where she was dressed pretty provocatively and making a lustful gesture. I don't even remember having seen the notification that I was tagged. In any case, my wife saw this and went into orbit, thinking I had been che
Re:Mine showed a photo I was tagged in... (Score:5, Funny)
Mine showed a photo that someone (or maybe even Facebook's automatic tagging thingie) had tagged me in, even though I was not in it. I'd just posted the thing without previewing it because I figured what the hell.
Anyway, that photo was one that some girl had taken at a party I was not even at, where she was dressed pretty provocatively and making a lustful gesture. I don't even remember having seen the notification that I was tagged. In any case, my wife saw this and went into orbit, thinking I had been cheating on her and was boasting about it on facebook. Now I've been sued for divorce and have lawyers demanding I turn over my hard drives. Add to that, all of my Facebook friends saw it and were like "what the hell?" It has been a total embarrassment and has basically ruined my life.
Thanks a lot, Mr. Fuckerberg.
You should have been using MyCleanPC.
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APK's host files as interpreted by Bennett Haselton would have been a better bet.
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If your life is so fragile that it could be ruined by facebook you didn't have much of a life.
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Note: if your wife is willing to sue you over a Facebook post and is not willing to listen to you about it, there was probably something wrong with the relationship before that. Marriages are not designed to be that fragile, socially or legally (to say nothing of religion obviously).
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I'm sorry but if your wife is divorcing you because of a mis-tagged photo on Facebook then either:
A: She is (in my opinion) doing you a favor by getting the hell out of your life.
B: You two had a lot more problems already and this was just the final drop.
Either way, if one photo can ruin your marriage the marriage was ment to be anyway. Personally I don't think this ruined your life (maybee it feels that way now) but it's made your life a lot better.
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Wow... I bet that you now wish you had at least been to that party....
But yes, something went wrong when people started to use the tagging as a way to connect people to some joke-pics just as a way of sharing.
awkward 'year in review' (Score:5, Interesting)
Facebook keeps showing me one of those also, for mine they picked a photo I took of a flood at our lake home. Images of our docks under water, tree limbs floating by, with a happy party border. I laugh each time I see it, but I can see not wanting some photos being revived onto my feed.
Anecdotally... (Score:5, Informative)
My "year in review" prominently displayed a picture of the back of my car having been crushed in when I got rear ended by a giant truck. My obvious response was "gee, thanks Facebook." Obviously that doesn't have anything on a picture of someone's deceased daughter, but it shows how poorly conceived the feature is.
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Obviously that doesn't have anything on a picture of someone's deceased daughter, but it shows how poorly conceived the feature is.
Facebook obviously assumed that pictures are posted because people want to remember, when some are posted because people don't want to forget. Seems like the same thing, but it's not. Either can be happy or sad. Context is everything.
first world problem (Score:1)
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Actually I didn't click on it, Facebook conveniently placed a simulation of the year in review for me to see on my feed.
I agree, it was uncool (Score:1)
This should not have been 'automatic'. I was greeted by an image of a pet i lost.
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Sorry to hear that. Hope you find it.
Why such dumb algorithm? (Score:1)
With Facebook being all about making sense of data for advertising purpose you would expect they would come up with some smart algorithm that would figure out the actual context behind posts. I'd expect Facebook to know when people are happy, sad, angry, drunk, silly etc. when they post and use that information not only for targeted advertising but for the benefit of their users.
Why such dumb algorithm? (Score:2)
Or you could avoid posting the pictures (Score:2)
The year in review is just a summary of what you yourself have posted. "Don't show me my own photos" seems like an unrealistic request for a mainstream service. I think the most that can be done is have a preference that people can check if they don't want their year in review. Facebook has plenty of ethical flaws, but this is not one of them.
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Nope, just a simple option to not generate a year inreview. What exactly are you proposing? Requiring the other billion people to opt in?
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You do realize that until the point where his daughter died, he very much wanted to see the photos and share them, right? You're essentially asking for a grieving father to go through his entire photo collection and mark his daughter's photos as "don't show this". That's in no way a solution.
The solution is not to pretend that bad things don't happen. It's for our society to grow up and learn to accept that they do, and learn to take care of one another. If your daughter dies next year, at the end of the year, will you pretend it didn't happen? Someone with a happier year would have a happier year in review.
People are confused by Facebook, it's just life with more ads.
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The solution is not to pretend that bad things don't happen. It's for our society to grow up and learn to accept that they do, and learn to take care of one another. If your daughter dies next year, at the end of the year, will you pretend it didn't happen? Someone with a happier year would have a happier year in review.
Yes. But as I already said above, this is exactly why not the review is the problem. It's the thoughtless "See the review of your fantastic year" line. A "Do you want us to create a year review at all" question would be a way to ask if somone had a happy year. A "rate your year" would even be better.
why Facebook? (Score:4, Insightful)
can someone explain to me why it's so important to have a Facebook account?
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Re:why Facebook? (Score:4, Funny)
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You can filter out stories? Is this a slashdot feature or do you need a plugin? For example, how would I filter out all the global warming (or whatever they renamed it to again) stories?
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can someone explain to me why it's so important to have a Facebook account?
Parsing through translation computer...
I've got an axe to grind against Facebook for whatever reason, can someone validate my beliefs... Pleeeeeease validate what I believe.
But to answer your question, a lot of people use it to share thoughts, experiences, photographs and information with friends and family.
Its convenient and most people also don't give a shit about metadata mining.
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How else are you going to have more friends from high school than you ever actually had in high school?
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While I don't have a FB account, I understand why some people do. My friends used to communicate with text messages, and I was always in the loop. Then it all moved to Facebook, and fortunately they remember to invite me to things now but in the early days they either forgot or remembered right at the last moment.
I can see many people being basically obliged to be on FB just to keep up with their social circles. From there it's easy to get sucked in, and people start tagging you on photos etc. It sucks and
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Loved it. (Score:2)
I quite liked my year in review. The pictures were from some of my favorite events of the year. Whatever algorithm they used came up with a very nice collection of pictures.
Slashdot as usual - misleading summary (Score:5, Insightful)
Some commenters are ridiculing how people were 'outraged' from the year in review. But if you look at the actual article by Eric (http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2014/12/24/inadvertent-algorithmic-cruelty/) - and note the title -'inadvertent algorithmic cruelty' it is much more an analysis of the design of the feature and applying human sensitivity to software design. His closing statement is 'If I could fix one thing about our industry, just one thing, it would be that: to increase awareness of and consideration for the failure modes, the edge cases, the worst-case scenarios.'
It wasn't a rant against Facebook. It wasn't a 'woe is me, Facebook ruined my life'. It was a post about how Facebook's design has an affect on him that they probably weren't going for.
Had it not been Eric Meyer, I would imagine there would have been no public apology, though perhaps just a rethink of the design.
There wasn't really even a demand that Facebook change anything. But if you're Facebook, you might consider how many others are in a similar situation that Eric is in and are confronted by uncomfortable images. It isn't good business to have people made uncomfortable, unhappy or pained by your product.
Similar to if they had accidentally had Goatse show up in everybody's feed. Even if nobody complained, you are still going to lose at least some customers because it makes the experience unpleasant.
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if they had accidentally had Goatse show up in everybody's feed. Even if nobody complained, you are still going to lose at least some customers because it makes the experience unpleasant.
And you'll gain others...
my dead garden was posted! (Score:1)
Surprise, surprise (Score:1)
The dimwits at fb came up with yet another "Great Idea", did a half-assed implementation without thinking it through, and wound up hurting and pissing off people.
No one, and I mean literally not one single person old enough to know anything about computers and social media should be surprised by this latest screw up.
I don't expect companies or individuals to be perfect. But I do expect them to learn from their mistakes; when they shoot themselves in the foot and then reload and keep pulling the trigger, I
Mr Corporate (Score:3)
When you invite Mr Corporate into your life, it is much the same as inviting a vampire into your home, they never leave and do what they will. Mr Corporate has a tendency to be overly politically correct in pursuit of his profits and because of that correctness lamerfies everything he touches. Now Mr Corporate is not a bad guy and he'll do something nice if he thinks it will make him some money, but usually, he ends up having to apologize for it because when he does things like that they always lack sincerity.
It's like apologizing after facefucking someone, you still did it and the act of apologizing doesn't make the errant facefuck any more sincere so you will continue to enjoy facefucking others.
The thing is, if you don't like being facefucked, you shouldn't agree to the terms of a facefucking service and be surprised when you get a sincere facefuck.
God, I hate facebook (Score:2)
I've always disagreed with most of the premises behind facebook.
I would use a service that:
1. Didn't share any of my data with anyone
2. Didn't try to make my comments on other sites visible
3. Didn't try to mix my family with my friends or my work or assume that I have only one set of friends.
4. Didn't make me read every inane utterance of everyone I've ever come in contact with
5. Didn't try to sell me anything
6. Didn't try to sell me social games, I need social games like I need a long term illness
Also I'd
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Would you use a social network that nobody you knew used? The big advantage of Facebook is that lots of my friends and relatives are on it. You know, the ones I'm social with. Some of my friends have stopped reading their email, so the easiest asynchronous method of communication is Facebook messages. This wasn't my choice, but I still want to have such a communication method with them.
Facebook isn't ideal, but it's the only social network I have any interest in using, and my evaluation is that the
What can you say other than... (Score:3)
Don't click on it? (Score:2)
If you had something hurtful happen this year then don't click on a big photo thing that says "year in review"?!
I haven't clicked on mine because I usually hate that crap from Facebook so I just ignore it... I wouldn't know if there was something hurtful in it or not....
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You mean don't click on the photo of his dead daughter?
It's rather surprising that the point managed to get that far over your head.
My wife's had our son in the hospital (Score:4, Interesting)
...hooked up to an EEG machine.
The backstory is that I had gone to roust him out of bed because he's chronically late but found him in the bathroom, unconscious and not breathing. Somehow he had passed out, fell, and landed on a trash bin and the bin liner had blocked his airway.
He spent four days in the ICU, the first day in a propofol-induced coma with an EEG connected. It was a horrifying experience and my wife posted the image two days later basically as a way of letting people know what had happened and why we had gone silent to everyone for a few days.
She was annoyed by the image of him presented as "what a great year" but I don't think much more than annoyed.
I think the entire feature is lame and I've marked all of them (my own suggested one and every other I've been presented) as "I don't want to see this". Trying to block my own suggested one in the Facebook IOS app consistently crashed the app.
My takeaway on this is that Facebook's image analytics suck. As good as they seem to be at identifying faces for tagging you might think they would be able to train their system to identify smiling faces so that when they suggested images they would tend to show ones more likely to be positive and reject others.
Re:He didn't care enough to edit it, apparently (Score:5, Insightful)
Elected not to participate?
I purposely haven't touched my year in review thing, but it's constantly up the top of my facebook news feed - with a recent picture I took on a trip.
I dare say the same thing has happened to him, except with a picture of his dead daughter.
I can't hide it ("I don't want to see this" hides it until the page refreshes), I didn't ask for it, but personally I don't care.
The difference is, he's being taunted by facebook with his dead daughter against his will.
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I didn't see anybody saying that Facebook was out to hurt anybody, just that that's what wound up happening, and that Facebook voluntarily did something about it. That's good.
He didn't go back to Facebook to see the photos, he went back because Facebook is useful in keeping in contact with people. Facebook showed him a picture of his dead child (probably repeatedly) without him doing anything else.
All services come
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I am looking at pictures of dead babies now.
this would make a nice t-shirt or bumper sticker.
Re:People Are Such Babies (Score:5, Interesting)
This is how adults resolve things. There were no lawsuits. There were no mass protests. There was a guy who said "Yeah, that picture the algorithm picked? It hurt." And Facebook said "Wow, we can see that would hurt, and we're sorry it did. We will try to do better."
WTF is wrong with this exchange?
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WTF is wrong with this exchange?
Using Facebook in the first place is what's wrong.
Re:People Are Such Babies (Score:5, Insightful)
I lost my three year old daughter early this year, and I certainly understand how this person feels. I've been avoiding looking at my Facebook photo albums as well. I think it's a kind gesture from Facebook to acknowledge that their user base contains people in every situation imaginable, and for many, a photo retrospective is inappropriate. The only person who should be curating personal photos in Facebook is the profile owner.
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That is terrible. You have the sympathies of a least one Anonymous Coward.
I can't imagine what you are going through.
Re: People Are Such Babies (Score:2)
Thanks, it's the worst pain a person can feel. I'm doing OK. I know what I'm giving up when using Facebook and I'm cool with that. There are classy, respectable ways to use peoples data, and I'm glad society is having this conversation on the finer points of net etiquette.
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The only person who should be curating personal photos in Facebook is the profile owner.
You mean the person who clicked through the ToS that grant Facebook a perpetual, commercial, sublicenceable, license to use the photos however they wish? Including (as they've done in the last) licensing them to third parties to use in adverts?
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Also, those "Year in Review" things don't get posted to your timeline until you click the "Share" button. He openly admitted that he didn't look at the preview and then clicked Share anyway? And he blames Facebook?
My heart feels for him and his loss, and I respect Facebook Administration for their apology, but this guy never should have shared his year in review.
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Mai Bad. I think I may have misunderstood. It's unclear that he shared it at all. It was just the prompt to share it that was offensive, and that makes the offence a lot more understandable.
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I've had my "year in review" pop up several times in my Facebook feed, not just once. I haven't shared it, but I've seen it. Fortunately, the cover picture is one of my wife when we were having a very nice dinner, not something that hurts me when I see it.
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This is how adults resolve things. There were no lawsuits. There were no mass protests. There was a guy who said "Yeah, that picture the algorithm picked? It hurt." And Facebook said "Wow, we can see that would hurt, and we're sorry it did. We will try to do better."
WTF is wrong with this exchange?
The problem is that the web designer's situation should be irrelevant to our evaluation of the choice Facebook made. Sure, it makes it easier for unreasonable people to draw emotional conclusions. What if the web designer was lying, and completely fabricating the complaint? Most people's opinion would change.
If Facebook posted aggregate pictures to their server, then there are 2 questions: do they break any (reasonable) law, and did they do something to upset their customers or users? "My child died of
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The mass protests are about people being killed and are happening because authorities aren't listening.
No, actually the mass protests are happening because various rabble-rousers like Al Sharpton
colluded with irresponsible media outlets to manipulate people into feeling outrage despite the
harsh truth that the facts relevant to the events in which the people were killed clearly indicate
that those who were killed acted in a manner which brought them serious trouble. Attack a cop
and you can and SHOULD expect a counter attack.
This is not rocket science and I am god damned tired of fuckwits like you parroting bul
Re:People Are Such Babies (Score:5, Insightful)
No, actually the mass protests are happening because various rabble-rousers like Al Sharpton colluded with irresponsible media outlets to manipulate people into feeling outrage despite the harsh truth that the facts relevant to the events in which the people were killed clearly indicate that those who were killed acted in a manner which brought them serious trouble. Attack a cop and you can and SHOULD expect a counter attack.
Yeah, a cop should be able violate his his own department rules and use a choke hold on someone that kills them ignoring pleas from that person that he can't breath and then stand around doing nothing when he stops breating. Note his level of resistence consisted of raising his arms up. There should be no problems with a cop summarily executing a kid running around with a pellet gun without any form of interaction with the kid before killing him even after they were told it was probably a toy gun. Any less than outright execution might have put an officer at risk. And there should be absolutely no issues with a cop shooting someone walking up stairway with his girlfriend and then taking no action to render aid to the person he just shot but rather call his union representive so they can start the spin machine going. There shoud be no problem with a mob of cops shooting hundreds of rounds at 2 unarmed people in a car including one cop jumping on the hood of the car and putting several rounds into them through the windsheild. There shouls be no issues with cops making no knock raids on wrong houses that results in innocent people being killed. Not cop people. If you shoot at the unknown black masked thugs invading your house you'd go to jail. Mind you I can go on all night listing crap police have done and gotten away with that would have resulted in serious incarceration for anyone not a cop.
And lets talk about the one your defending. At the grand jury hearing to decide if charges were justified apperently the prime witness supporting the cops account of what happened that the DA brought in to testify was outright lying and couldn't have possibly been near where the shooting happened. And no one should have an issue that the DA admitted he knew that she was lying before he brought her to testify at the hearing. The DA did everything he could to make certain no charges were brought. To paraphrase one expert normally a DA can get charges brought on a sandwich. Whatever the truth was there was more than enough question that there should have been a trial.
This is not rocket science and I am god damned tired of fuckwits like you parroting bullshit which make people who asked for trouble appear to be innocent victims.
And I'm tired of dipshits who too stupid to realize that there are serious systematic issues with the policing in this country. I was in the Infantry stationed in Germany at the peak of the cold war. Our sector was dead center in the Fulda Gap which was the prime Soviet invasion route into central Germany. Those cops on the streets in Ferguson were better equiped then we were. And they weren't at all hesitant to point their assault rifles at anyone and everone violating the first rule of gun safety. You have to be turnip level of stupid not to see any of this as being an issue.
What you need to do us shut the fuck up and educate yourself on the events as they really happened and quit spewing childish fantasy bullshit. However I have to point out that your user ID is spot on.
What you need to do us shut the fuck up and educate yourself on the events as they are really happening and quit spewing childish fantasy bullshit. However I have to point out that your user ID is spot on.
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Re:People Are Such Babies (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's see, we have Mike Brown, who MIGHT have "attacked," though the witnesses are starting to be questionable..
You conveniently choose to leave out the reality of the closed circuit video of Brown physically attacking the convenience store owner. That was the reason the cop was called to the scene. Brown then attacked the cop ( Brown had powder burns on his own hands, which indicates Brown's hands were within inches of the gun when it was fired ). Brown attacked the cop and the cop did what was necessary to neutralize the threat.
The guy selling cigarettes illegally was engaged in criminal activity. If he had not rested arrest he would still be alive. When you resist arrest the police ARE entitled under the law to use force if necessary to arrest you. That's how the REAL WORLD works. I've been arrested, and I did NOT resist because I knew that if I did resist I'd get my ass beat down by the cops. If you are being arrested the smart move is to cooperate and act in a respectful manner. It will work in your favor during the arrest and in court as well.
By the way, genius, you guessed wrong about my ethnicity. I am African-American. I have a law degree and I worked my ass off to get where I am in life. And I know that the system we live in is imperfect but it is better than any reasonably available alternative. I know that fucking with a cop who
is trying to do his job is a losing game and I advise all my clients to cooperate fully if they are stopped by the police. If Brown and the cigarette seller
had cooperated with the cops they would both still be alive. There is a lesson here, whether you are too damned stupid in your third-person righteous
indignation to grasp the lesson or not.
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You conveniently choose to leave out the reality of the closed circuit video of Brown physically attacking the convenience store owner. That was the reason the cop was called to the scene.
You seem to be engaging in some erroneous statements. For one thing, the story from the Ferguson PD has been that the officer knew nothing of that event, and that Michael Brown wasn't in or near that convenience store, that it was another officer investigating that crime, which was not near where Michael Brown was shot.
http://www.ksdk.com/story/news/local/2014/08/15/ferguson-chief-officer-didnt-know-about-robbery/14124259/
In any case, theft of a few dollars worth of tobacco products doesn't constitute a cr
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Re:People Are Such Babies (Score:5, Insightful)
That you keep arguing the facts of specific cases seems to indicate that you are missing the point. People aren't in the streets protesting - let alone rioting - because one, or even 5, guys were killed by the police. There is a long, long history of police not being terribly respectful of the community that they "serve". These recent cases are the proverbial straw that broke the camels back. The cases are not perfect - there is no Rosa Parks - but you can't necessarily plan exactly when the powder keg will explode. While your advice to cooperate with the police is sound, it is a bit terrifying. Local cops are supposed to be serving the community, not doing a bunch of crap that the community doesn't want. Why is a beat cop enforcing a state cigarette tax? Is that really what the local community is clamoring for?
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Why is a beat cop enforcing a state cigarette tax? Is that really what the local community is clamoring for?
Why wouldn't a police officer enforce the law? I do not get this. Or are you saying that the police should obey the popular opinion on what constitutes a crime and what should be enforced instead of the actual local law? If the "community" does not like the law, then try to get i changed.
Then again, I live in a country that is not so fragmented.
And if they guy selling cigarettes resisted arrest or even tried to pick a fight with the cop (always a very bad idea) instead of just paying the fine then he is rea
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Not only that but resisting arrest is a crime in the first place in overwhelming majority of the countries.
A reasonable course of action is to allow police officer to arrest you and then figure out if he had grounds to do so with his higher ups at the station.
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Why wouldn't a police officer enforce the law? I do not get this.
An officer armed with a deadly weapon should be used to enforce a very narrow set of laws. People make terrible generalists - we are best when we specialize. We let the IRS handle tax problems, health inspectors handle food laws, and fire inspectors handle code violations. Your average local beat cop should not be expected to enforce every law - and yes, their mandate should be primarily focused on keeping the locals happy. Everyone needs to feel comfortable relying on the local cops or they fail to do thei
Re:People Are Such Babies (Score:5, Insightful)
How is suffocating in a chokehold "resisting arrest"? He was not actually being arrested, by the way. But this kind of "if police kills you, you probably deserved it" logic really needs to go. This sort of uniform-bearer worship leads to Grand Juries not even handing out an indictment. That makes it impossible to actually do a proper trial in order to figure out truth and justice, and that in turn exacerbates the police stance that they are attack dogs, trained to attack and kill on a whim, with any resulting casualties being the victim's problem.
The idea of police is to make it less not more dangerous to go out on the street. Killing people selling unregistered cigarettes is not exactly improving the statistics.
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What on earth are you talking about?
I was talking about specific problem - resisting arrest as a way to protest police action. It's stupid in both potential cases:
1. You're guilty. You just add resisting arrest to the case, making it worse for you in the court.
2. You're innocent. You could have walked, but now you're going to get criminal record for resisting arrest.
You lose in both cases.
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Any number of reasons ranging from mistaken identity to improperly acting police officer?
Why are you asking questions wholly irrelevant to the topic?
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So you grab the extreme edge case and peddle it as norm.
Why?
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It's usually best to avoid smugly correcting others when you're clueless on the subject. In adversary justice system like that in US, the scenario #2 will usually warrant a long look from prosecutor to see if the case is worth bringing to court. Most cases of such nature will usually be either settled as is the case in US or straight up dropped with a slap on the wrist like a fine like happens in most of Europe with no going to court unless you contest prosecutor's decision.
In investigatory system like in F
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No, that is just one of countless amount of problems, most of which are generally not on police side of things. You are presenting one edge case as a norm. Why?
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I agree with you that the "It was a great year" line was going way to far.
On the other hand, compiling a slideshow of uploaded pics is ok, because viewing them and have them bring back memories is what photos usually are for. Until everyone started to post their food as before and after pictures, you'd take pictures of those special moments you want to remember. So bringing them up in a year review is completly legit.
And if someone beloved died, that's part of that year, too. But this is where the picture-p
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Re:don't fucking post it! (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's see.
User's daughter is alive. He takes pictures of her and posts them on facebook like a proud parent.
User's daughter dies. User grieves.
User starts to get over his grief. Facebook tosses the images right in his face.
Reaction of a third party: "well you shouldn't have posted them in the first place!"
Tell me AC. Are you this sociopathic in life outside slashdot too? Because if you are, you should seek psychiatric help.
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He's got a point, though. Facebook is the creepy guy in the van trading pictures of your kids for candy. They're not exactly shy about sharing the fact that they want to monetize every bit of information you give them.
You're just playing the "Don't blame the victim!" card... I can feel sorry for the guy while still hoping that he (and others) learns from this incident.
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I see titties nearly every night and morning. If that's warping me in some horrid fashion, I say "Bring it on".