Citizen, a controversial neighborhood watch app, is hiring people to stream crime, fire or traffic accident scenes – if you join you can earn $ 25 an hour: such an announcement, for the New York area, was published on the JournalismJobs website and even if it does not mention Citizen, it is evidently the app that it refers to.
For some time there have been reports of people recruited for a fee by the application to stream live various events, from emergencies to crime episodes: they have written sites such as New York Post e DailyDot, who in June reported on a case discovered in a Los Angeles neighborhood, where a man named Landon, paid for by Citizen, filmed shooting scenes, police chases and even the inhabitants of a building while they were stuck in an elevator.
The managers of the company that manages the application have confirmed that they make use of his contribution and, more generally, of a team of 12 members (who they are part of the so-called Street Team), enlisted with the task of operating in the field for the direct via mobile phone of events in various urban centers of the USA.
It happens in the US
If copyright becomes a deterrent to protesters
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An app created for neighborhood surveillance
Citizen, which was called Vigilante in 2016, is an app for iOS e Android which was created to send real-time security alerts to the inhabitants of a neighborhood on the basis of police communications, calls recorded by the 911 emergency number (the American 112) and the reports of the subscribers themselves (to date, over 7 million).
Over time, the app has also been used to do other things and has been the subject of numerous criticisms: also used to voice protests in the United States, is accused by several sources of “create a climate of alarmism unjustified ”and to“ encourage executional behavior ”, bypassing the police.
In May of this year, Citizen founder and CEO Andrew Frame offered a reward of 30 thousand dollars for the discovery of an active arsonist in Los Angeles, unleashing a real manhunt, which risked getting into trouble a person who had nothing to do with fires. The episode provoked the reaction of the police, who condemned the initiative promoted by the application.
Privacy e chat
Why it is important to use (and defend) Signal
by Andrea Daniele Signorelli
It is not over, because Citizen has also stroked the idea of developing its own private security force, able to intervene following reports: whether he manages to make it or not, surely it is another way to attract more criticism.
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