Flock Bans Flag, Motorola Vigilant Takes Over: City Surveillance Vendors Cycle Through Overreach
Multiple accounts reveal a direct pattern: cities abandon one invasive vendor, only to acquire contracts with another, namely swapping out Flock for Motorola Vigilant. This suggests a cyclical adoption of high-level, persistent tracking infrastructure.
The resistance takes two major forms. Some argue for organized political withdrawal, pressuring contracts through the ballot box. Others advocate for physical disruption, with users like empireOfLove2 suggesting strapping poles to traffic lights, and Pat_Riot urging direct confrontation. In contrast, some contributors, like ttyybb, reminded others of previous successes in making such companies withdraw.
The clear consensus is that the current surveillance apparatus provided by companies like Flock is viewed as fundamentally invasive, demanding strong, localized political resistance. The main fault line remains the tactic: whether the fight plays out through lobbying and voter action, or through direct physical opposition to the installed hardware.
Key Points
The core infrastructure from Flock and Motorola Vigilant is seen as overly invasive.
The general sentiment across the discussion targets the tracking nature of the tech.
Resistance tactics are sharply divided between political and physical confrontation.
One faction demands contract withdrawal via voter pressure; another favors direct action against the physical poles.
Vendor dependency is cyclical, with cities switching between problematic providers.
sulfidedisburseangledafternoontipper noted a city moving from Flock to Motorola Vigilant, implying no permanent solution exists.
Advocacy for content self-hosting is presented as a strategic media defense.
noumenon suggested publishing primary material solely on self-owned sites to bypass platform control.
Source Discussions (3)
This report was synthesized from the following Lemmy discussions, ranked by community score.