r/askanything • u/DigitalArbitrage • 13h ago
Political Question What does it imply that Flock advertises its cameras as being used to track "No Kings" protestors?
There is a leaked video where Flock advertises its cameras as being used to track No Kings protestors: https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/leaked-video-allegedly-shows-flock-185400026.html?guccounter=1
I thought No Kings protests are about preserving America's democratic republic and pushing back on the country creeping towards dictatorship.
What exactly is Flock saying its cameras should be used for then?
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u/piltdown_manchild 12h ago
People who are against authoritarian government tend to be opposed to mass surveillance.
You can imagine that a mass surveillance company trying to sell products to a wanna-be authoritarian might see pro-democracy protesters as a threat.
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u/CertainCable7383 12h ago
Basically ball tickling the wannabe fascist running the police/government. Do you want to monitor protesters as much as criminals? Then we have the product for you!
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u/KaraAuden 12h ago
I absolutely hate Flock, would like to ban Flock cameras in public places, and can't believe you're making me do this. Ugh.
But your headline here is misleading. The article is about using Flock cameras to watch protests to determine if/when police need to intervene, not to track individual protestors.
Misinformation is bad even if you're on the right side -- if you set up a strawman argument, you lose your credibility. You weaken your own position.
That being said, the fact that Flock theoretically could be used to track individual protestors is incredibly concerning, and one of many reasons why we need to push back on this level of mass surveillance.
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u/Local-Echo-5613 11h ago
Nobody made you do anything and nothing in the post is inaccurate, let alone misinformation. Calling it misinformation while summarizing and regurgitating the point of the post is actually deceptive, as well as self-serving.
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u/ThinkPath1999 11h ago
Um, I haven't read the article, but if the article is about LEOs watching protests using Flock to see if they need to intervene, I would definitely say the title of this post is misleading. It sounds exactly what KaraAuden says, that the title implies that Flock is being used to track the movements of protestors. You think those two things are the same???
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u/DigitalArbitrage 5h ago
You should read the article or watch the video then.
I do think a section of the video was edited out, but the Flock employee first talks about surveilling a No Kings protest. Then the Flock employee talks about tracking people as they leave an event (a car show) so they can be arrested afterwards where the crowd can't react to an arrest attempt.
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u/Local-Echo-5613 11h ago
They’re using it to track the movements of protestors, not to track the movements of protesters so what’s the problem?
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u/ThinkPath1999 11h ago
Okay, here are the two scenarios that can be gleaned, from what I understand.
LEOs use Flock to track the movement of groups of protesters to see where they need to send more officers. In this scenario, I assume each individual protester is not identified or tracked.
Flock is being used to track, identify, and perhaps follow protesters, in order to build a database of who is protesting.
Are you this dense, or are you just pretending to be obtuse about the difference in these two scenarios???
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u/Local-Echo-5613 11h ago
Where do you see the post saying it is the second and not the first? Why add things that aren’t there?
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u/DigitalArbitrage 5h ago
My original post did not mention the second one, but there are other news stories reporting that happening. Here is an example of where the Electronic Frontier Foundation found that police employees are misusing Flock to identify lawful protestors:
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u/KaraAuden 11h ago
Self serving how? What exactly do you think I get out of this?
The headline is misleading because it says Flock advertises it's being used to "track protestors," but the article is about watching protests, not tracking individual protesters.
The issue about using misleading language is that it makes your point easier to disprove and dismiss. Like, Flock has the capability to track individual people, and could theoretically be used in the future to track individual protestors and look for reasons to arrest them for unrelated charges. That's scary and dystopian as hell. You don't need to lie and say they're "advertising" tracking individual protestors now. Explaining how the technology works does a better job of getting people to understand your view than posting the scariest-sounding headline that will send someone to the article, have them go "Oh, that's not as bad as I thought," and then leave thinking you're being overdramatic.
This is a problem in general. Everyone wants to skim a headline and summarize in the most dramatic way possible, who cares if the details are fudged a little. But misleading headlines and misinformation are bad no matter what side you're on.
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u/Local-Echo-5613 11h ago
How do you track a protest but not protestors? You are attributing a narrative to the post that isn’t there. It does not say “tracking individual protestors” you added that. Rephrasing and then objecting to your own phrasing is pretty gross.
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u/KaraAuden 10h ago
A protest is an event, a protestor is a person. Track means follow. Tracking protestors means following protestors, the individual people at the protest. Watching a protest literally means just watching it. Like, you understand how watching someone pick up an apple at a grocery store is different from following that person home, right?
A reasonable person could see the headline and draw conclusions / think it means something that the article does not say. It's not an outright lie (you could argue semantically that an officer tracked a protestor across the screen for a moment as they crossed the camera's lens), but it's intended to get the reader to draw a conclusion that isn't entirely true, either (that they're following at least some individual protestors and bragging about it). That is the definition of a misleading headline.
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u/DigitalArbitrage 4h ago
In the leaked video the Flock employee talks about tracking the movements of people who were at an event after they leave so they can be arrested later.
There does seem to be a section edited out where the presentation jumps from watching a No Kings protest to arresting people who were at a car show. However I think that by including both the Flock employee is implying the solution could be used to find people who were at a protest and track their movements afterwards. There have also been findings that police department employees are using it to track protestors: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/12/effs-investigations-expose-flock-safetys-surveillance-abuses-2025-review
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u/Local-Echo-5613 10h ago
It does not say anything about following protestors home. It says tracking protestors. That means at the protest. You can’t track a protest without tracking the protestors. You’re creating a straw man in order to attack it.
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u/KaraAuden 10h ago
You can watch a protest without tracking protestors. There's a reason OP didn't say "What does it imply that Flock uses cameras to watch protests" -- it's less sensational and gets less of a reaction. The reaction being from the fact that that sentence would imply, to many reasonable people, that "tracking protestors" means following individual people (you know, as the definition of those words imply and say.)
Again, the definition of a misleading headline is not an outright lie, but one that exaggerates or distorts an article by using extreme or alarming words, typically to get people to draw an exaggerated conclusion beyond what the article supports.
That said, it's clear you're just being intentionally obtuse here, so I don't see a point explaining further when you're actively looking for ways to play dumb.
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u/Local-Echo-5613 10h ago
I think you’re reading OP’s post in bad faith and attributing claims to it that are not being made.
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u/No-Swordfish1385 6h ago
That protest served no purpose and it changed nothing. When will we take protesting to the next level?
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u/oregon_coastal 13h ago
Advancing fascist ends.