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Comment by brookst | Hacker News Reader

Not sure I agree it’s “most likely” when the linked article presents no evidence of LEA awareness or complicity, just one person speculating.

I know firsthand what can be done with a hardhat, clipboard, and high-viz vest. IMO it is far more likely that Banksy is just really good at social engineering in ways that other street artists are not.

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I imagine this just isn't that difficult to get away with. Most areas are basically empty in the early hours of the morning (even in the middle of the city). And people doing some kind of engineering or installation work at that time would also not be that unusual.

The difference is that you'd get a police visit and your artwork torn down if you're not Banksy.

mainly because it's worth a lot of money...

That doesn't mean it was coordinated.

Just goes to show the power of his art. I don’t find that bit the least bit surprising but this inconsistency always has been at the heart of his art for me and to a large extent also what his work is about.

Plus this is pretty much the only street artist with worldwide name recognition; of course things are going to be different.

Yes, London is famously free of surveillance and the Met is famously tolerant of political speech. Certainly, if someone had put up a statue of a pro-Palestine protester being blinded by a flag Sadiq Khan would just stand around being puzzled and letting things be. No question about it.

Oh, if you’re moving the goalposts from “Banksy had official support putting it up” to “the authorities reacted differently after the fact than they would have for others”, then I actually agree.

Official support and not interfering with it being put up are nearly the same thing. It's not like throwing up a statue is some complex operation only governments can carry out.

“Officials knew in advance and helped or actively decided not to interfere” is NOT nearly the same thing as “Banksy’s team used social engineering to blend in and go unquestioned”.

The claim was that they had government assistance doing the project. IMO that’s just a conspiracy theory to explain what “bunch of construction workers with flatbed truck, traffic cones, and high viz vests” sufficiently explains.

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