Why you & your girlfriends should stop checking in
venturebeat.com
venturebeat.com
1. Someone opens up this app, looks for girls nearby and pics one from this app. In this case it would stupid for the rapist to go for the girl because her whereabouts are known so the police would know the area where she was abducted and therefore it would be easier to identify the rapist/murderer as they can check nearby security cameras and know where to look around. The conclusion would be that if the rapist/murderer/whatever was following logic he would avoid people listed in this app.
This leads us to the second possible scenario:
The rapist/murderer does not follow any logic and just commits his crime based on primitive instincts (ever heard of rapists who have intercourse with sheep and kettle?) In that case you loose any way because that person strikes at random and thus the chances are not increased because you checked in somewhere.
and then there is the final and third scenario:
Someone is trying to murder or rape YOU specifically after picking you out from this app. But lets be reasonable the chances of that happening are ABYSMAL because guess what most people don't want to rape you.
Also relevant: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Oww4Ap3YZA
For instance, the author complains: "But did any of those apps get shut down by a barrage of vitriol from concerned citizens? Did young women stop checking in and sharing their location with anyone with a 3G connection? Hardly."
But the fact is, creepy apps like this are shut down all the time, including the Girls Around Me app referenced in the article. Already gone.
I also think it's hilarious to see any kind of threat in an app which supposedly tells you the age and gender of people you are in a bar with, using face recognition. Um, I can usually tell the age and gender of people I am looking at by, uh, LOOKING AT THEM. So I fail to see the heinous threat here.
Then again, the URL is “i-hate-all-apps-bah-humbug”, so this might be somebody’s strange idea of an April Fool’s prank. I thought it was satire at first.
Still, this kind of writing is pure sensationalism. It's virtually the same "concern" publications were having over robbers monitoring your Foursquare account to break into your house when you're not home.
People shouldn't base their lives and decisions around imagined scenarios that involve sociopaths. This is just more shoddy, fear-based 'journalism' piggy-backing on a scare wave. It does nothing to improve people's understanding of their privacy settings and options, and does everything to exploit a trend for more page views.
Women are constantly trying to figure out how much risk is attached to behaviors that men take for granted, and alter their behavior accordingly. It's all fine and well to say not to worry about "imagined scenarios" involving sociopaths, but there are many real life stories of women who have been stalked and received persistent death threats just for having a blog online and being only moderately well known. And in the case of something like check ins, any stalker wouldn't just have your email to send threats to, they would have your physical location.
Unless you are a woman, I would suggest that you may not have the best perspective from which to tell other women what they should and should not be afraid of.
You're referencing scary anecdotes to refute my claim that you shouldn't base decisions on scary anecdotes.
Unless you are a woman, I would suggest that you may not have the best perspective from which to tell other women what they should and should not be afraid of.
Wow, that's sexist. One cannot assess risk unless one is within the target category? I bet you wouldn't be saying that to me if I took the more sexist and popular view that women need to be coddled and sheltered from the cruel, strange men on the streets.
Here's a random tidbit from a web search: "Females are generally murdered by people they know. In 64% of female homicide cases in 2007, females were killed by a family member or intimate partner".
I'm guessing that, as usual, women should be most wary of those to whom they're closest.
2. Actually, I wasn't trying to say "men can't possibly know that", I was try to say that people who happen to have the firsthand experience of being a woman probably have more knowledge of the risks that women typically have to navigate than you do if you are male, unless you have had some reason to accumulate an unusual amount of information on the topic from firsthand sources.
3. Taking the condescending position that women need to to be coddled by men is very different from allowing that each woman needs to assess for herself what kinds and degrees of risks to her person that she is willing to accept and act accordingly. Whether you tell me that I am incapable of handling x situation myself and offer to shield me or you tell me that I should dismiss my worries about situation x because you know better, you are operating under the assumption that I cannot be trusted to assess the situation and act accordingly myself. I don't expect this is what you meant to say?
2) Being susceptible to or targeted by fear-based anecdotes does not make one more able to objectively evaluate them. Quite the opposite, in fact.
3) I don't know what you're talking about here. I was pointing out that your position is, in my opinion, fundamentally sexist, and that you likely wouldn't have batted an eye had I taken the more popular, sexist view.
Yeah, so how about basing them on statistics? Like the one that says that 1 in 4 women was sexually assaulted?
>I bet you wouldn't be saying that to me if I took the more sexist and popular view that women need to be coddled and sheltered from the cruel, strange men on the streets.
Coddled and sheltered no, but they should be vigilant about them.
Are there as many street rape attacks on men? The numbers don't indicate so at all (not to mention that lots (most?) men wouldn't even consider a sexual attack by a woman unpleasant --except if they consider the woman ugly).
>Here's a random tidbit from a web search: "Females are generally murdered by people they know. In 64% of female homicide cases in 2007, females were killed by a family member or intimate partner".
Yes, that just leaves the other 36%. And that's on homicide. How about sexual assault? Even with similar or worse numbers, being most likely attacked by people you know is orthogonal to declaring your whereabouts. If the raper is that kid down the block of your house that's obsessed with you, does he also have to know that at 12:34 Friday night you are at that remote area?
How many of those are on the street by strangers? Does that include molestation? IIRC, 1 in 6 boys are molested in the US.
Here is someone's take on the 1-in-4 figure: http://aspiringeconomist.com/index.php/2009/09/11/rape-stati...
I don't think the 1-in-4 figure should be used when talking about the potential to be attacked and/or raped by strangers on the street.
men wouldn't even consider a sexual attack by a woman unpleasant
That's just more sexist B.S.
If the raper is that kid ... you are at that remote area?
Again, scary, fictional anecdotes. You're not going to sway me with that tactic.
>That's just more sexist B.S.
It's also true. Poll your buddies about it. But note how you disingenuously left out the part where I wrote "except if they considered that woman ugly".
>Again, scary, fictional anecdotes. You're not going to sway me with that tactic.
You confuse "anecdotes" with hypotheticals and scenarios. And fictional or not has nothing to do with whether something is possible.
The scenario was meant to show that most rapes being done by people you know doesn't automatically mean that you would be OK to advertise your GPS position, because the category "people you know" also includes people that do not know your position (unlike say, an abusing father that does his "deed" at home, a stalking neighbor can attack you away from it).
Ugh. It's called brevity. Insert your whole statement if you want, it's still sexist B.S.
You confuse "anecdotes" with hypotheticals
No, but you seem to. You want me to poll friends (anecdotes) and you want to present hypotheticals. Either way, it doesn't matter, both are to be disregarded when making decisions. You can try to get into a semantic attack if you want, but it doesn't strengthen your (muddy) position any.
fictional or not has nothing to do with whether something is possible.
And whether something is possible is absolutely no way to make decisions in life. All kinds of things are possible.
doesn't automatically mean that you would be OK to advertise your GPS position
It would be awesome if you pointed out where I indicated anything like this.
Really, you seem to have some kind of position in your mind that you imagine I'm holding, and it has nothing to do with anything I've said. Good day to you.
No, brevity is cutting out the unneeded parts. Cutting out the "except" part of someones argument is not it.
>No, but you seem to. You want me to poll friends (anecdotes)
You also seem to confuse polls with anecdotes.
You do know that polls are a valid statistical tool, right? Or that, when the subject is what guys think polls give an immediate representation of the truth on the matter. Do you know of any other way to get closer to what guys think on a subject than asking them?
>Insert your whole statement if you want, it's still sexist B.S.
Nothing sexist about it --it's an observation about what guys believe. The belief might be sexist, but the observation cannot be as it's not judging the belief as a good or bad thing. As I said, "most men wouldn't even consider a sexual attack by a woman unpleasant except if they found her ugly". Everyone I know seems to agree on it. Assuming you're a guy, is the notion of being sexually assaulted by a beautiful woman unpleasant to you?
>It would be awesome if you pointed out where I indicated anything like this.
Gee, maybe in the part where we were discussing how you should NOT advertise your GPS position through all those social apps, and you said that you disagree.
Do you use this "take-it-to-the-extreme" for every argument you hear?
Most of the times, arguments are meant to be considered at the level at which they are told and for the situations for which they are told.
For example, when one tells you to wear something warm when outside is snowing, he doesn't mean you should wear 20 overcoats and a special thermal suite.
So, to avoid schools because "there have been shootings" and such, is not at all like "avoid declaring your exact location to the whole world especially now with the availability of pervert-targeted-apps like Girls Around Me".
For one, the statistics on rapes and sexual assaults VS school shootings don't favor your argument in the least.
I didn't, and I don't know why you think that I did.
For one, the statistics on rapes and sexual assaults VS school shootings don't favor your argument in the least.
It would be awesome if the people making this claim supplied some of these statistics.