Vigilante App looks to cash in on crime. What could possibly go wrong?

[tulipsandroses]

A wildfire in a Los Angeles neighborhood led to a troubling manhunt.
'FIND THIS FUCK:' Inside Citizen’s Dangerous Effort to Cash In On Vigilantism

Last month Andrew Frame, the CEO of crime reporting and neighborhood watch app Citizen, violated his own app's policies by telling staff to broadcast the personal information of an individual they mistakenly suspected of starting a wildfire, putting a $30,000 dollar bounty on that person's head, and telling workers the company needed to "FIND THIS FUCK," potentially putting this person's safety in danger. Motherboard reported this with multiple sources and caches of internal Citizen documents, including Slack chat
[link:https://www.vice.com/en/article/wx5xj9/apple-google-citizen-policies-manhunt-bounty|

Citizen had gotten a tip that the wildfire was started by an arsonist, and Frame had decided earlier in the night that the fire was a huge opportunity. Citizen, using a new livestreaming service it had just launched called OnAir, would catch the suspect live on air, with thousands of people watching. Frame decided the Citizen user who provided information that led to the suspect’s arrest would get $10,000.

SNIP
He was growing impatient. He increased the bounty to $20,000. Thousands of people were watching Citizen's livestream, but the man still hadn't been caught. Frame asked his staff to send out another notification, one that would hit all Citizen users in Los Angeles. The bounty had to go higher.
"Close in on him. 30k Let's get him. No escape. Let's increase. 30k," Frame said. "Notify all of la. Blast to all of la."
"Citizen is OnAir: Arsonist Pursuit Continues," the notification, which went out to 848,816 Citizen users in Los Angeles, said. "We are now offering a $30,000 reward for any information directly leading to his arrest tonight. Tap to join the live search."

SNIP
Users are flooded with notifications in what multiple sources interpret as an attempt to make users feel anxious enough about their neighborhoods to buy "Protect," a $19.99 per month service that allows users to livestream their phone's camera and location to a Citizen "Protect agent" who monitors it and sends "Instant emergency response" in case of an emergency.
[/div
Here's an ad for the App

][link:

|

[GemDigger]

1. Is this for real?

It creeped me right the hell out. This is so wrong.

[tulipsandroses]

2. Yes it is very real.

I can see so many ways that this can go wrong. They've already blasted someone's picture and identification to hundreds of thousands of people, put a reward out to capture him live. Turns out he had nothing to do with it.

I can see people getting killed either the vigilantes killing innocent people or people enticed by the money and going after criminals and getting killed. Its going to be a disaster. Especially if it spreads to the MAGA/QAnon crowd.