Social media based on Nextdoor's fear, Citizen and Amazon's neighbors are becoming more and more popular

Violent crime in the United States is at its lowest rate in decades. But you would not know it from a series of increasingly popular social media apps that form around crime.

Apps like Nextdoor, Citizen and the neighbors of Amazon Ring – all of which allow users to view local crime in real time and discuss it with people nearby – are among social apps and news the most downloaded in the United States, according to the ranking of the App Store and Google Play.

Nextdoor presents itself as the "largest social network in the world in the neighborhood", where you can ask for recommendations from nearby restaurants, buy used furniture or report a stolen bike. In practice, its "crime and safety" section has been a hotbed of racial stereotyping that has forced the company to rewrite its software and policies.

Citizen – whose previous form was called Vigilante and which seemed to encourage users to stop crimes in action – sends users 9-1-1 alerts for crimes occurring nearby. It also allows users to stream live clips recorded on the crime scene, "interact with other citizen users as situations develop" and "develop your inner circle of family and friends to create your own personal security network and receive alerts whenever they are in contact. close to danger. "

Now, Amazon has thrown his hat on the ring – with Ring. He recently announced an editorial position to coordinate the coverage of crime information, including the Ring video ring and Neighbors, his social media application. Neighbors warns users of local crime information from "unconfirmed sources" and is replete with Amazon Ring videos of people stealing Amazon parcels and brown "suspects" on porches. "Neighbors is more than just an app, it's the power of your community to come together to keep you safe and informed," he says.

Nextdoor was the ninth most downloaded lifestyle app in the US on the iPhone in late April, according to App Annie, an application data company; number 27 a year ago in the category of social networks. (Nextdoor changed its lifestyle social apps category on April 30, and on April 29 it was ranked 14th in social, according to App Annie.) Amazon Ring's neighbors are the most downloaded social app in the world . When it was launched last year, it was 115th. Citizen, which sees itself as a news app, was the seventh most downloaded news app on iOS at the end of April, up from the ninth in the month of April. last year and the 29th in 2017.

Apps can fuel a vicious cycle of fear and violence

These applications have become popular because – and have compounded – the false sense that the danger is on the rise. Americans seem to think that crime is getting worse, according to data from Gallup and Pew research centers. In fact, crime has declined sharply over the last 25 years, according to the FBI and the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Of course, unjustified fear, curious neighbors and neighborhood watch are not new. But the proliferation of smart homes and smart devices is putting tools such as cameras and sensors in bells, porches and corridors across America.

And as with everything related to technology, the reporting and sharing of information collected by these devices is easier than before and their reach is wider.

According to David Ewoldsen, professor of media and information at Michigan State University, these apps raise fear around crime, fueling existing prejudices and racism, and broadening stereotypes around skin color.

"Extensive research indicates that if we hear about a crime or read a crime story, we are much more likely to identify a black person than a white man. [as the perpetrator], "Ewoldsen said, regardless of who actually committed the crime.

As Steven Renderos, Senior Campaign Director for the Center for Media Justice explained: "These apps are not the definitive guides to crime in a neighborhood. They simply reflect the prejudices of people, who criminalize people of color, the unoccupied, and other marginalized communities. "

Examples abound of racism about these types of applications, usually in the form of those who are identified as criminals.

A recent Motherboard article revealed that the majority of people posted as "suspicious" on Neighbors in a gentrified neighborhood of Brooklyn were people of color.

Nextdoor has been a victim of this type of stereotype.

Citizen is full of comments speculating on the race of people alerted by 9-1-1.

Although qualifying as "suspicious" is not immediately prejudicial, the consequences of this designation may be. People of color are not only more likely to be suspected criminals, they are also more likely to be arrested, abused or murdered by law enforcement, which reinforces the likelihood that they will be arrested. idea that these people are criminals.

"These applications can lead to real contacts between people of color and police, as well as arrests, incarcerations and other violent interactions based on police biased law enforcement across the country," he said. Renderos. "And in the digital age, as police services increasingly adopt" data-driven policing "programs, the data generated from these interactions, including 9-1-1 appeals and arrests , are part of the historical crime data often used by predictive policing algorithms. Thus, the biases inherent in decisions about who is suspicious and who is arrested for a crime end up informing future priorities of law enforcement and continuing the cycle of discrimination. "

Apps do not create bias or unfair police, but they can exacerbate it

"For me, the danger of these applications is that they give the individual the power to decide who belongs to a community or not," Renderos said. "It increases the potential of communities of color to get in touch with the police. These types of interactions have had fatal results in the past.

"Look what happened to Trayvon Martin. George Zimmerman was the watchdog. He saw someone who did not seem out of place and decided to do something about it.

These applications can also be psychologically damaging to the people who use them.

It is natural for people to want to know more about the world around them in order to reduce their uncertainty and increase their ability to cope with the dangers, said Ewoldsen. People are turning to these applications.

"You keep going because you're scared and you want to feel more competent, but now you see a crime you did not know," said Ewoldsen. "The long-term involvement is increased fear and less sense of skill. … It's a negative spiral.

"Focusing on those things you interpret as a danger can change your perception of your overall security," said Pamela Rutledge, director of the Media Psychology Research Center in Recode. "Basically, you're raising your stress level. There is a lot of research on the dangers of stress, from high blood pressure to the degradation of mental health.

These applications are particularly scary because they deal with crime nearby, in your neighborhood or in your postal code.

"Because it's so close, I guess it has a bigger impact on fear," Ewoldsen said.

Why is this happening now?

Technology has essentially enabled people to do what they have always wanted: to know what is happening and where is the danger. Security cameras and their associated applications – like smart devices in general – are improving and becoming cheaper, and they are making their way into more and more homes.

Entertainment devices such as smart TVs and streaming devices are the largest segment of smart device sales, but smart security devices are in second place, according to research firm data IDC. The annualized growth rate of the smart security sector is expected to be around 30% for the next three years.

Like all new technologies, we have trouble using it properly.

"When something is new, we have trouble understanding how to use it," Rutledge said. "We jump in the bottom of the pool and slowly walk to a place that makes sense."

But why would we use something that plays on obviously wrong fears and has so many negative side effects? Some say: evolution.

"We are preparing to understand the nature of our environment to increase our chances of survival," Rutledge told Recode. "Our instinct is to get as much information as possible to determine the danger.

"Walking around the savannah, it was much more important to know where the tigers were than the flowers," she added.

So, even if you are statistically sure, the instinct is to look for what could go wrong.

"You may know that only four in 10,000 have congenital heart disease," said Rutledge. "But if you've been one of the four, that's not reassuring. Similarly, if in your neighborhood, you are aware of what is happening, the fact that crime is down by 20% will not cut the mustard. "

The problem is compounded by the media, says Ewoldsen.

"If you see more coverage of crime, you think it's more of a problem, even though real-world statistics say that's not the case," Ewoldsen said.

And all of this is happening at a very controversial time, both politically and socially.

"This is partly due to the general level of discord and lack of comfort in society at present," Rutledge said.

As Ewoldsen said, "the president constantly screams against crime – creating a false border crisis and stating that immigrants are stealing jobs, that Mexico and other countries are sending criminals – strengthens the economy. idea that crime is skyrocketing. "

The rise of social media applications based on fear could also be linked to the decline of local news. The cuts and closures of local newspapers in recent decades have led to deserts of news: regions that no longer have journalists to cover events that are not national.

For the best and generally the worst, social media have stepped in to fill the void.

"It's the way people are exposed to the news today," Renderos said. "Social media is more and more places where people identify their source of information."

These social apps and local news, with their air of authority and neighborhood watch, may seem like a good alternative. It's not as if local news is immune to fear-based coverage, but new technologies have the capacity to amplify this type of information.

What are we doing about this?

Ewoldsen says it's about an issue of media literacy and how people choose to consume media.

"We have to be careful and be more attentive in our consumption of information," he said.

This means that you must understand which publications on these applications are relevant and are not relevant to you, perhaps by decreasing the range of action of these applications or by disabling notifications. Users also need to know how their biases and those of other users of the application could distort reports and reaction to these reports.

The responsibility lies also with the manufacturers of the technology.

"It would help if they eliminated all unverified reports," Rutledge said. In practice, however, this would involve having to verify crimes before they can be reported, which would be very difficult if not impossible.

"It would help if we said" these are three important things geolocated and these things are not important – these threats are not. Here are some tips. "

Cynics might say that these companies are only trying to sell more door cameras and wireless security devices and encourage more downloads of apps. The fear of being born is therefore in their best interest, but Rutledge believes that businesses should take a long-term view.

"A sustainable business will want to think about the long-term well-being of its customers," said Rutledge. "Always making money fast will not make you a sustainable business."

---

Recode and Vox have joined forces to discover and explain how our digital world is changing – and changing us. Subscribe to Recode podcasts to hear Kara Swisher and Peter Kafka lead the tough discussions that the technology industry needs today.

What are the effects?

perpetuates racism and harms people of color.

It also hurts users of these applications.

ert amount of ev that makes you gain weight.

if you use something properly, you feel better, misused, you feel worse. Use FB to connect demons or stalk a nice old boy, look at the sheet with more than I feel worse.

Most people can say that it is not very useful to look at all these results, but some people can do it.

According to Renderos, technology companies could use these applications to strengthen their already large databases, this time with much more delicate effects than targeted ads.

He claims that Recognition, Amazon's highly controversial and imperfect surveillance face recognition tool, could be associated with the video generated from these video doorbells.

Official recognition of the police

https://www.vox.com/2018/11/5/18062008/amazon-ice-we-wont-build-it-all-hands-meeting-law-enforcement-rekognition

This technology has been marketed as a monitoring tool that can be used to monitor faces in group photos, overcrowded events, and public places such as airports, and to run these images to match databases. Mugshot.