In each section, the document includes background information on the
activist, their contact information if available, their social media handles
and follower count, then quotes each have previously said about MSG’s facial
recognition program.
This seems like a pretty normal thing to do. If anything its kind of quaint to see
“Facial Recognition Activists.docx” . . . in a folder named “Activists" instead of plugging it into a repurposed CRM with built-in social media monitoring, or maybe an electronic Evidence Board in Foundry to tie back EFF donations to season ticket holders of various things. Maybe they do all that too, or maybe the event venue management doesn't care that much.
It isn’t really a normal thing to do, no. Do you think they keep dossiers on everyone who complains about concession prices? About long lines to get in? Do you think people who have done either of those things get denied access to MSG?
The fact that they’re this motivated to track people on this niche topic sounds alarm bells for me.
"This seems like a pretty normal thing to do." - adolph
(relevant username)
I'm not sure what's more concerning, a Nazi who's in the closet or one that is "out and proud"
I may be out of pocket here, but I think the Hacker News crowd of tech bros who spy on people for a living have a biased opinion on whether spying on people is normal
> This seems like a pretty normal thing to do.
(Name checks out) yeah this is not a normal thing to do. Man we need mandatory ethics classes in school.
Mandatory ethics classes don't change the fact that asshole "Tech" bros don't pay attention to them.
The people who said "This is bullshit" in my ethics class are the ones who went to work at facebook and such so they could be rich. They don't care that you get hurt in the process.
Education can only improve a situation caused by lack of education. Most people doing shitty things aren't doing it because they don't know it's shitty.
You see people here on HN making up rationalizations all the time because they know it's shitty. They just don't care that they cause harm. They were raised by people and society to think it's okay to harm someone for your own gain because that's basically what America has advertised for 50 years.
Crazy to see this attempt to be normalized here.
No. No, this is not normal.
People are making a concerted effort to force your business to do something, and you don't want to know their names or how much influence they actually have?
> People are making a concerted effort to force your business to do something,
What a contrived way to spell "democracy"
Ok? It's democracy. You want to know who the people involved are and what influence they have.
Actually, they're making an effort to force your business to not do something.
> This seems like a pretty normal thing to do.
That is NOT normal.
Not the one to make this discourse Reddit like but I do find the username pretty unfortunate for the comment.
"I will make it normal." - Adolph
Well you'd like to think that. I agree it shouldn't be normal.
Half the tech industry thinks its fine though -- at least as long as it's not the government doing it.
> This seems like a pretty normal thing to do
sorry to the rest of the esteemed hn community for the low-effort reply, but... gross.
We have a document detailing our competitors. So I guess I have to ask...
Am I normal?
If your document details personal information about your competitors employees and their personal contact details then I think the situation might be comparable.
And very much not normal.
You think having a document detailing competitors is the same thing as compiling personal information of people who have publicly commented against what you're doing?
The sandbagging on this story is crazy.
Competitive intelligence and customer info is one thing. Do you block your business competitors associates and family from accessing public venues?
Dolan does.
Do those documents detail personal information, like face identification, family, etc.?
Its usually about the company, not the individual
if you attach some kind of socially hostile mandate to that list, and accumulated resources to actuate that mandate.
its one level of unhealthy to point at a demographic and say, "them they the source of the problems" , thats like archie bunker.
going further, individual names and dox, curated summarized to a quick read list, gathering weapons building a cell, thats historically malignant.
when i'm doing large presentations to prospective clients my company gives me what they call a "look book". This is a deck with information about every person in the audience all the way down to personality traits, triggering words/phrases, and negotiating style. I think it's pretty normal.
That's a personal information database and making one without consent of the people detailed is _super_ illegal in Europe.
There's a few examples of entities like Jehovah's witnesses making do-not-visit lists that have been considered as a personal information database and such have been in hot water many, many times about that. Yes, even though you might do them to help you personally, you're acting as an agent of the org you're associated with, and such you're not supposed to be doing that.
Are the potential clients aware that you have this? Are you willing to say who you are or who your company is or would that be embarrassing? I would absolutely not be your client.
> when i'm doing large presentations to prospective clients my company gives me what they call a "look book". This is a deck with information about every person in the audience all the way down to personality traits, triggering words/phrases, and negotiating style. I think it's pretty normal.
this is antisocial manipulative behavior normalized under the auspices of "good business".
> I think it's pretty normal.
It has been normalized to you.
It is not normal.
If you ever showed up at my business with something like that, we would never meet again, and I would tell all of my peers, other businesses, etc.
What you're doing is called PsyOps and it's a military function.
Some of you run in dark circles, and this is coming from a guy who got paid to kill people.
"Normal" here requires a time bound. I would say it's pretty abnormal if the window is "the last thirty years", and pretty normal if it's "the last thirty days."
Because of the thing.
Dolan is known for being extra petty.
Yeah, not much to see here. Each of the activists named likely had a similar "dossier" on MSG and the Dolan guy. Knowledge workers are going to practise knowledge management. People use to do this with a Rolodex.