
Slack Removed a Blog Post Showing How Police Use Its Tech - jmsflknr
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/jgxma3/slack-blog-post-worked-with-police
======
sbilstein
Former Slack employee here...

This blog post/case study was published a few years ago by Slack's marketing
team and led to a firestorm of controversy within the company. Many employees
of all backgrounds spoke up about how upset they were that Slack would use a
police department as marketing. Eventually the decision was made to keep it up
which certainly frustrated a lot of people. I guess now the leaders have
decided it's time to take it down.

edit: in private channels for POC, which I was a part of, people were incensed
at the insensitivity. At the time I felt it was a particularly stupid choice
for marketing material but not necessarily a moral wrong.

~~~
xwowsersx
Why though? Is there not a legitimate role for policing in a civil society?
And if there is, don't they need to coordinate and collaborate just like any
other organization?

~~~
ryanSrich
> Is there not a legitimate role for policing in a civil society?

Look around. Most Americans would say no to this question.

I don’t think they’ve thought through the consequences of that, but I
guarantee a random poll would show most Americans want to abolish or >70%
defund the police (which is effectively the same).

~~~
microcolonel
> _Look around. Most Americans would say no to this question._

How is it possible to conclude this? There have been polls the last few days
where more than half of respondents of both parties support sending the
_National Guard_ to quash the rioting and looting, and _a significant
proportion of Democrat respondents think the Federal government should send
the U.S. military to do the same._

If you live in a place where people broadly do not support the police as an
institution, you live in an odd place.

Now, given recent events on the top of the national consciousness, there is
broad concern that some very bad police tend to be protected in many police
departments, but that's an entirely different opinion.

~~~
xwowsersx
Right. It seems to me that many here are making sweeping and unsubstantiated
generalizations. There are problems in policing that need to be addressed, but
to extrapolate from that that police are not necessary and/or are a net
decrease in safety is really a conflation of two separate issues.

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jeffdavis
Are we saying that:

(a) police are a net good, but slack is aiding/encouraging particular bad
behaviors; or

(b) police are a net bad and we should just deny them anything that enables
them to do their jobs; or

(c) police are a net good, but it's bad PR to associate with them

~~~
ceilingcorner
It's a witch-hunt, plain and simple. Of course the police needs reform,
demilitarization, higher standards, more accountability, and better
educational requirements.

How you get any of those things by demonizing the police and making it a left-
vs-right political issue is beyond me.

~~~
marcinzm
>How you get any of those things by demonizing the police and making it a
left-vs-right political issue is beyond me.

These aren't new issues, practically speaking every attempt at less radical
solutions hasn't worked and there have been many. In the end, the solution
will be filled with political compromise and the weaker your starting position
the more compromise there will be.

~~~
ceilingcorner
Surely the amount of police violence is less today than say, the early 1900s,
when outright lynching was practically sponsored by the police? You deny that
there has been _any_ progress?

~~~
marcinzm
Society as a whole has changed and I'd argue police have changed less than the
rest of society. Given the videos from the last few days it's clear that the
police see themselves as immune to consequences even in the age of social
media, cell phone cameras and widespread public opposition.

~~~
ceilingcorner
Sure, I agree to that absolutely. But how you get from "the police needs
radical reform" to "we don't need police, abolish them" is a mystery to me.

~~~
komali2
> "we don't need police, abolish them

I think it's important to not conflate this movement with the _defund_
movement, which merely points at the for example 6 billion dollar NYPD budget
and says "is this really necessary?"

Furthermore, the "abolish" movement comes with its own subtleties, that don't
necessarily mean "all cops gone tomorrow." An easy exercise to illustrate this
to yourself: you can imagine that an alt-right 2a gunsrights activist wearing
milita patches, body armor, and holding a rifle, while chanting "abolish the
police," has a very different idea in their head of what that means from a
liberal social-democrat holding a "black lives matter" sign and chanting
"abolish the police," can't you?

Here's a good article: [https://bostonreview.net/law-justice/derecka-purnell-
what-do...](https://bostonreview.net/law-justice/derecka-purnell-what-does-
police-abolition-mean)

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sol_invictus
I don’t get it. Are we now advocating that police is overall more of a force
of evil than good? Legitimate question.

~~~
_bxg1
That is what's becoming apparent right now, yes. I was more of an "a few bad
apples" person until this week. But they're making it extremely clear that as
a faction they have no regard for anything or anyone but their own power and
bravado.

~~~
anticonformist
This principle incriminates the protesters just as much.

There is widespread rationalization and support for the "few bad apples"
perpetrating violence/looting/burning/rioting. There is very little
condemnation. Lots of quoting MLK Jr. "rioting is the voice of the unheard"
and yet MLK Jr. certainly did not practice or advocate violence.

If the protesters can't regulate their own bad apples then how can they judge
police for not being able to?

Currently, this is two groups of unethical idiots fighting with each other.
With each group's extremists serving to justify the other's extremists.

The outcome is easily predicted. Either the protesters take the ethical high
ground or they lose.

~~~
lm28469
> This principle incriminates the protesters just as much.

Yeah but you know, one group _took oath to protect and serve_ and the other
didn't.

It's like when Trump say some racist shit VS when your drunk uncle says the
same thing, you can't put both sides to the same standards.

Everybody condemn rioters, but for some reasons a lot of people, including the
president and many officials, manage to rationalise police brutality and if
you don't see that as the obvious main issue you're most likely in the wrong.

> The outcome is easily predicted. Either the protesters take the ethical high
> ground or they lose.

This is the kind of thoughts I had when I was 15, I don't even know what to
reply to that anymore.

______

Also, why do people keep creating new accounts to post these very poorly
thought comments ? Don't you have the balls to attach your speech to your semi
public internet presence or are you just trolling ?

~~~
nitrogen
_Also, why do people keep creating new accounts to post these very poorly
thought comments ? Don 't you have the balls to attach your speech to your
semi public internet presence or are you just trolling ?_

I think it's fair for someone on the fence, or visiting the conversation from
the other side, to comment on the crimes of both sides without fear of being
personally insulted _on HN_.

We can condemn the police and hold them to the much higher bar they should be
held to, and also condemn whatever looting and vandalism is occurring. "Two
wrongs" etc.

~~~
anigbrowl
If someone creates a new account in order to make one post based on a
screamingly obvious fallacy they deserve what they get.

~~~
anticonformist
Just because you claim it to be false does not make it false. You could be
wrong.

So what exactly does someone "deserve" for expressing a contrary opinion?

~~~
anigbrowl
I claimed it to be fallacious, not false. Your trolling game is laughably
weak.

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shibeouya
Coming from a country where police has been rendered completely toothless by
the same policies some people in this country are trying to promote which led
to literally lawless areas, I am completely against this movement that's
currently for some reason trying to demonize cops.

I do not care if you're black, white, asian, gay, lesbian or anything - if you
break the law, threaten a police officer, or simply ask completely
irresponsibly around them, you should be punished appropriately.

What I DO agree with is perhaps greater transparency from the police. This is
a problem that can be fixed. Anyone wishing to defund or even abolish the
police clearly has lived a coddled life for way too long and doesn't know what
happens when police can't do their jobs.

Be smart and don't let poisonous politics cloud your judgement - police are
nowhere near as bad as some media would love to make you believe.

~~~
affyboi
> punished appropriately

This is exactly what the protests are about, that police are using
disproportionate amounts of force, and it seems to be heavily influenced by
race.

If you break the law, you're entitled to a fair trial and a fair punishment.
Handing someone a fake $20 bill doesn't warrant death. Hell, I've gotten
caught speeding multiple times, I can't imagine that you'd argue that it's
worth an execution or even a beating. I also jaywalk all the time.

And people aren't getting their opinion of the police from the media, a lot of
this anti-police sentiment is spurred by firsthand videos from protestors on
the ground.

Not to mention that protesting is protected by the constitution and is a
cornerstone of our democracy.

~~~
on_and_off
it is also not the job or the prerogative of cops to punish anybody FFS.

They have a VERY special role in society where they are authorized to use
violence against other citizens. This role absolutely does not include any
form of punishment or beating up people because they feel like it.

Unfortunately police needs way stricter rules, monitoring and accountability
than what they have today in many countries.

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throwaway1997
Post in question: [https://archive.is/iCVq0](https://archive.is/iCVq0)

(Sorry to post twice but think this is relevant as a root level comment)

~~~
kroolik
Link looks broken. Getting 403 Forbidden.

~~~
throwaway1997
This is caused by using DNS over https

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devado
Same here. Why is it caused by DNS over https?

~~~
tsbinz
Because the archive.is operator returns bad results when queried by
Cloudflare.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19828702](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19828702)

~~~
ciarannolan
Any idea when this pissing match will be resolved?

I spend 8-12 hours online every day and have only ever seen this issue with
that one website.

------
pl0x
Have switched from Slack to discord and our team has been happy.

~~~
apta
What benefits do you find that discord offers over Slack?

~~~
pl0x
1.Cost 2) Real time voice chat is a game changer 3) Better User Management

------
paxys
The last thing any company needs right now is the media digging up an old blog
post/Tweet of them praising the police, so can't blame them. I wouldn't be
surprised if the post magically comes back up when things are back to normal.

------
oh_sigh
After 9/11, there were a surge of recruits joining the military because they
felt it was their patriotic duty.

In the wake of George Floyd et al, will people start joining the police force
in an attempt to reform it from within?

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misiti3780
Possibly somewhat ironically (and hypocritically?), the CEO seems very anti-
police based on twitter:

[https://twitter.com/stewart/status/1268749287615156230](https://twitter.com/stewart/status/1268749287615156230)

[https://twitter.com/stewart](https://twitter.com/stewart)

Disclaimer: I am a happy user of slack and do not have an opinion on the blog
post

~~~
Tallasatree
I'm guessing the CEO is not anti-money.

~~~
misiti3780
Also, he probably cant legally not let police departments use it, it's
publically traded.

~~~
ganstyles
Largely a company can choose their customers; they’re not forced to transact
with anyone. There are some exceptions of course, largely based on the reasons
for not transacting. Being publicly traded doesn’t really matter here
directly.

~~~
nahtnam
I'm curious, do any kind of discrimination laws apply here?

~~~
ganstyles
They do, and that's what I was getting at when I used the qualifier "largely".

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foolinaround
we need to look seriously at curtailing the power of the unions.

Even yesterday, the leader of the union in MN said that they are going to
appeal for the jobs - since these guys were fired without due process.

~~~
spoopyskelly
The union's job is to protect the workers, not agree with your politics.

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kyleee
is there a link to the archived post?

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throwaway1997
Should be this one [https://archive.is/iCVq0](https://archive.is/iCVq0)

~~~
donclark
403 Forbidden

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throwaway1997
It doesn't work if you use DNS over https

~~~
donclark
Thank you

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4636760295
One way techies can affect change is to not do business with the government,
particularly law enforcement and military.

However, this won't happen, because at the end of the day the only thing
people _actually_ care about is money.

~~~
commandlinefan
> the only thing people actually care about is money

Although I do care about money, I also support my government and my local
police force, and would be happy and proud if my work could be used to make
their efforts more efficient as well as more open, transparent, and fair. I
don't agree with everything my government does, and I believe that there are
bad cops that need to be corrected, but don't presume to speak for me.

~~~
4636760295
If you have 1,000 cops, and 1 of them does something bad while the other 999
take no action, then you have 1,000 bad cops.

