Slashdot Mirror
A Chat With Zavilia, a Tool For Identifying Rioters
HansonMB writes with an interview in Motherboard.tv. From the article: "Social media isn't just great for starting 'social unrest,' it's proving to be quite helpful for quashing it too. Not long after the bricks began to fly in London's latest kerfuffle, locals angry over raging mobs scrambled to assist the police in their attempt to identify street-fighters and free-for-all hooligans ... Now with more than 1,000 people charged over the chaos, a few citizen groups continue to provide web-based rioter identification platforms, in hopes of being good subjects, maintaining the country's pursuit of order, and keeping their neighborhoods safe."
If you are free to use social media to organise riots, I am just as free to use the same social media to identify the idiots who rampaged through my neighbourhood. Freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences.
[...] The copyrights have been made on the Zavilia brand name, principle, and technologies. [...]
[...] Although we cannot comment on exact figures, we can confirm the website peaked at over 100,000 unique visitors. [...]
[...] We have made contact with the authorities regarding several identifications, although we cannot disclose the exact figure due to security reasons. [...]
[...] entire documents detailing why Zavilia is “unethical” and “encourages vigilantism.” These remarks are however unfounded, and no damage has been done. [...]
[...] We do envisage much greater uses for Zavilia. However, as these are currently copyright pending, we cannot disclose any further details. [...]
Is it just me or is this interview nothing but a stream of useless PR crap? Our platform is so super-secret, 'cause it's copyrighted, y'know, and it does mighty good, but canna tell ya, 'cause it's so super-secret. Yeah, right. Colour me unimpressed.
Rudolf Hess edited Mein Kampf. He was the very first grammar nazi.
So I just went to the zavilla webiste: The main page says "The development of Zavilia: Identify UK Rioters has been temporarily paused due to a substantial decrease in traffic and in user interactions. However, we fully intend to continue development at some point in the near future." In other words, either someone has got to them or there wasn't much of an interest anyway. Also, the old website has what? About 20 photos, most of which seem to have been taken from either Getty or Reuters. I can't exactly see this going anywhere.