quote leaked internal chats log of the night Citizen falsely accused a California man of intentionally setting a wildfire , Motherboard on Thursday offered readersan inside look into the company ’s self - bring down blunder , even as it was blindly executed , logs show , at the emphatic commission of its chief executive , Andrew Frame .
“ Citizen had sire a tip that the wildfire was started by an arsonist , and Frame had decided before in the nighttime that the attack was a huge opportunity , ” harmonise to Motherboard , which quoted Frame — yes , his real name — telling employee in Slack , “ regain THIS FUCK . ” The company eventually put up a $ 30,000 reward to the user who tracked him down — more than 860,000 of whom now had his picture , according to leak particular that werepreviously reportedand corroborated by Motherboard .
The homo was briefly detained but cleared by authorities . Another person was arrested for the crime .
Citizen Founder and CEO Andrew Frame speak onstage during TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2017 at Pier 48 on 21 December 2024 in San Francisco, California.Photo: Steve Jennings (Getty Images)
The seven - hour manhunt in Los Angeles was conducted “ under the increasingly frantic commission of Frame , ” Motherboard says , pointing to orders by Frame to “ Notify all of Louisiana ” and “ GET THIS GUY BEFORE MIDNIGHT . ” Sources from the caller and close to its laminitis tell reporters , Motherboard said , that the incident was “ qualify by Frame as a peril , a test , and experimentation , even though it potentially put the somebody they identify in danger . ”
Citizen was establish in 2016 by Frame , a programmer / early Facebook consultant , under the name Vigilante , a term that literallymeansenforcing the law of nature without “ the legal bureau to do so . ” NYPD officialsdenouncedit , warning ominously that drug user who ran toward offense would likely be confused for criminals . Apple rapidly ban it — for a while . Months later , it was back with a toned - down name . Its explicit call for drug user to get involved with crime was replaced with soft spoken communication about alert them to danger . Relying heavily on the work of unpaid worker police scanner enthusiast , Citizen also , for a time , repeal users ’ power to self - report incident , reintroduce the feature after in a more limited capability .
Motherboard ’s straggling exposé — which goes on to draw insistency on employees to keep users inundated with crime alerts to drive $ 20 livestream subscription — can beread in its entirety here .
ComputingLaw , CrimesoftwareTechnology
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