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Comment by Judgmentality | Hacker News Reader

> My prediction is someone will go all viligante and beat/maim/kill someone, probably who is innocent. Then the app will get pulled.

I think it's more likely the first time this happens the person is actually guilty, and there will be a huge debate as to whether or not it's a good thing.

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queue the "if we save only 1 child, its worth it" theme music as well.

ah yes, won't anyone think of the children?

As much as ‘queue’ looks like it would make sense, the word is actually ‘cue’

dang it! I even had cue first!

But you changed it to the next word in the queue?

I thought the Rico app in Westworld season 3 was kind of silly but I guess not now that it has an upcoming release date.

And the huge debate will suddenly stop when an innocent person is killed and everybody will always have been dead set against it.

And then it will come out that the vigilante has a sketchy, checkered past, possibly including jail time.

Jail time is not an indicator of a bad person. The US likes to lock up people for the crime of being poor.

That's correct. Notice, however, that I mentioned the actual crimes first, and added "jail time" as an afterthought. There are plenty of criminals who commit real crimes and don't get jail time, or even much punishment. See e.g. Brock Turner, Shane M. Piche, Zoe Reardon, George Zimmerman, Isaac Turnbaugh, etc.

But what if they don't?

Then they'll scramble to find anything they can to slander the person, such as a parking ticket

Don't forget about naughty pictures such as the subject holding mind-altering drugs such as coffee or alcohol.

> I think it's more likely the first time this happens the person is actually guilty, and there will be a huge debate as to whether or not it's a good thing.

No there won't. There have been serial killers who used common apps to find their victims, along with people who rob, assault, harass and stalk people they find on apps. People don't really care. Even the justice system doesn't care because the companies are able to argue that Section 230 means that they aren't liable for what users do with their products[1].

[1] https://www.americanbar.org/groups/diversity/women/publicati...

Right but there is a difference between people posting on a social media app and the app targeting someone itself. Citizen is encouraging others to find this person. So they would be held liable.

I'd imagine that they'd argue that they are not responsible for what users do in response to a bounty being posted on their interactive computer service, and courts would agree.

How do you determine if a dead person is guilty? AFAIK no prosecutor will indict a corpse.

Everyone is guilty until proven innocent.

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