Author Topic: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!  (Read 26623 times)

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Offline PlainName

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #150 on: June 28, 2023, 05:49:50 pm »
Scottish law is as foreign as US law as far as we're concerned :)
 

Offline TimFox

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #151 on: June 28, 2023, 06:24:23 pm »
Even so, one must remember that legal terms in English-speaking countries are made of English, French, and Latin words, but have precise definitions in law that may differ from common usage.
Another example is "malice aforethought", which is archaic English for the mens rea required for first-degree murder (as opposed to other forms of illegal homicide).
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/malice_aforethought

There was a US case in 1989 where a mistrial resulted from a juror bringing a standard dictionary to the jury room during deliberations, to look up the definition of "malice" that should have been referred to the presiding trial judge.
https://www.deseret.com/1989/7/2/18813788/judge-rules-mistrial-after-jurors-use-a-dictionary
 

Offline PlainName

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #152 on: June 28, 2023, 09:56:18 pm »
I'm afraid you've lost me as to how that's relevant, other than that I used 'malicious' in the normal English language meaning to describe a frame of mind. I didn't use it as a legal definition, merely to separate being deliberately (English meaning, not legal, thanks) nasty from unwitting, humorous or other reasonably innocuous actions.
 

Offline TimFox

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #153 on: June 28, 2023, 10:42:03 pm »
I was responding to your comment above:  "A hate crime is basically someone being malicious, but how do you outlaw that?"
In English and American law, intent is a relevant parameter.
Hate itself is not criminalized, but used as an aggravating factor for a real crime (assault, etc.).
 

Offline PlainName

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #154 on: June 29, 2023, 09:27:42 am »
OK. I think it's still not relevant because it doesn't answer the question of how you do outlaw hate without a separate crime to hang it on. If you're committed some crime then showing you were malicious is already most of the way there, simply because you were being naughty.
 

Offline Zero999Topic starter

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #155 on: June 29, 2023, 11:28:43 am »
There's nothing wrong with hate. It's a perfectly normal human emotion. A good number of crimes are motivated by hate. I don't see why the punishment should be any different, whether the motive is greed, hate or lust. Perhaps the punishment could be lighter if it was accidental i.e. carelessness.
 
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Offline PlainName

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #156 on: June 29, 2023, 11:39:10 am »
We are not talking, say, burning someone's car or nicking their garden gnomes, but calling them names on twitter and the like. Or 'maliciously displaying' golliwogs. Thus the hate is the crime; it's not a motivation or aggravation of some other crime.
 

Offline Nominal Animal

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #157 on: June 29, 2023, 01:25:53 pm »
An increasing number of humans live in a reality where events are completely random, and only emotions have true meaning.

To them, an action or an event can be either positive or negative, depending only on the emotions and experiences of the people involved.

Observe people and examine their logic or reasoning, and you can see this for yourself.  I personally do not like it, but there is nothing evil or wrong involved in it per se; it is just some kind of cultural change that I suppose is related to the effect of immersive social media on human reasoning and social adaptation.
 
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Offline Zero999Topic starter

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #158 on: June 29, 2023, 02:12:44 pm »
An increasing number of humans live in a reality where events are completely random, and only emotions have true meaning.

To them, an action or an event can be either positive or negative, depending only on the emotions and experiences of the people involved.

Observe people and examine their logic or reasoning, and you can see this for yourself.  I personally do not like it, but there is nothing evil or wrong involved in it per se; it is just some kind of cultural change that I suppose is related to the effect of immersive social media on human reasoning and social adaptation.
I've noticed as society has become progressively safer, the bar to what constitutes harm has been lowered.
 

Offline TimFox

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #159 on: June 29, 2023, 03:41:07 pm »
That evolution (assuming the society truly is safer) seems natural.
Away from warfare (national and civil), the violent death rate has come down in the world.
https://ourworldindata.org/homicides
 

Offline PlainName

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #160 on: June 29, 2023, 04:17:56 pm »
Might it be like risk compensation? Maybe we have a subconscious 'crime' quota that needs to be maintained!
 

Offline james_s

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #161 on: June 29, 2023, 05:20:16 pm »
There's nothing wrong with hate. It's a perfectly normal human emotion. A good number of crimes are motivated by hate. I don't see why the punishment should be any different, whether the motive is greed, hate or lust. Perhaps the punishment could be lighter if it was accidental i.e. carelessness.

Typically the punishment is lighter if it's accidental. Negligent homicide for example is a much lighter charge than murder, it can be used when somebody does something careless that results in the death of another person.

I agree there is no need to outlaw hate, there's no way that can work anyway, you can't prevent a person from hating something/somebody, all you can do is make them keep it in their own head. Trying to force someone to change their view or opinion never works as intended, it only reinforces it.
 

Offline james_s

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #162 on: June 29, 2023, 05:23:37 pm »
I've noticed as society has become progressively safer, the bar to what constitutes harm has been lowered.

That's expected and an innate component of human psychology. Virtually everything is relative, just as your eyes will adjust to ambient light levels the rest of our senses will adjust to surroundings. A person that grew up in a war torn 3rd would nation would probably feel safe in the worst parts of Philadelphia or Detroit, at least for a while. When you eliminate the biggest problem, something else becomes the biggest problem.
 

Offline james_s

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #163 on: June 29, 2023, 05:25:41 pm »
We are not talking, say, burning someone's car or nicking their garden gnomes, but calling them names on twitter and the like. Or 'maliciously displaying' golliwogs. Thus the hate is the crime; it's not a motivation or aggravation of some other crime.

Destroying or stealing someone's property is a crime, it inflicts direct harm and deprives them of something they have worked for. Calling someone names on Twitter is not a crime, at least not in any reasonable society. Remember "sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me"?Words can do no harm unless you let them. Especially in the case of online situations it is so incredibly easy to simply ignore something.
 

Offline gnuarm

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #164 on: June 29, 2023, 05:34:51 pm »
I've never been an Amazon fan.  They would never notice my absence.  Maybe I should buy a bunch of stuff, then cancel my account.  Make them sorry I left.

They won't notice even then, the entire process would be handled by mostly automated systems, you'd be just another drop in the bucket of overall statistical data.

I guess I should have added a smiley.  ;-)
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Offline gnuarm

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #165 on: June 29, 2023, 05:38:08 pm »
There's nothing wrong with hate. It's a perfectly normal human emotion. A good number of crimes are motivated by hate. I don't see why the punishment should be any different, whether the motive is greed, hate or lust. Perhaps the punishment could be lighter if it was accidental i.e. carelessness.

Yes, there is something wrong with hate.  The crime committed may be relatively innocuous, such as placing something on a lawn.  But if the message sent was onerous enough, it requires a much more severe punishment.
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Offline TimFox

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #166 on: June 29, 2023, 05:38:56 pm »
In criminal law, there are "mitigating" circumstances that result in a reduced punishment and "aggravating" circumstances that result in increased punishment.
A recent example of the latter was the mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue.
The defendant was convicted this month in Federal court of multiple charges that included the current version of the "Hate Crimes Prevention Act" and is about to be sentenced.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Shepard_and_James_Byrd_Jr._Hate_Crimes_Prevention_Act
Evidence for the "hate" part included copious postings of anti-Semitic and racist rants on social media.

As passed, the revised Act contains a "Rule of Construction" which specifically provides that "Nothing in this Act...shall be construed to prohibit any expressive conduct protected from legal prohibition by, or any activities protected by the free speech or free exercise clauses of, the First Amendment to the Constitution". 
"Hate crime" is defined as "a crime in which the defendant intentionally selects a victim, or in the case of a property crime, the property that is the object of the crime, because of the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, gender, disability, or sexual orientation of any person."
 

Offline PlainName

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #167 on: June 29, 2023, 05:42:17 pm »
Calling someone names on Twitter is not a crime, at least not in any reasonable society.

Please keep up with the thread - over here that kind of thing is made out to be a crime. The aforementioned display of golliwogs had a bunch of police turn up to remove them and take the offender in for questioning. You can get nicked for being nasty on twitter.

I think that even where you are, if you start racist shit you'll be taken in, won't you? But that's just sticks and stones. As is transgender stuff (which has also resulted in a court appearance here). So, way back in this thread, coppice said (in response to you, and with my emphasis):

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You need a lot of hate in your heart to think that hate crimes make sense. You can't know what's in someone's head when they do something bad. It just projection. Legally it should be irrelevant. Either some action is acceptable or unacceptable to society. Outlaw the unacceptable.

And I replied:

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Either some action is acceptable or unacceptable to society. Outlaw the unacceptable.

I think that's the problem: trying to outlaw the unacceptable, being specific enough to catch workarounds that skip the letter of a law but not dragging in unintended stuff. A hate crime is basically someone being malicious, but how do you outlaw that?

As such, I am asking how hate crime could be outlawed without it going too far.

I trust you are now up to date and can follow the thread on your own from here on.
 

Offline james_s

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #168 on: June 29, 2023, 05:58:01 pm »
I think that even where you are, if you start racist shit you'll be taken in, won't you? But that's just sticks and stones. As is transgender stuff (which has also resulted in a court appearance here). So, way back in this thread, coppice said (in response to you, and with my emphasis):

Well, I said "in any reasonable society", there are of course unreasonable and rather dystopian societies in the world.

No. You may be tried, convicted and sentenced in the court of public opinion, you could find yourself out of a job and banished from social circles but you cannot be arrested and charged with a crime for saying racist things, it's protected free speech. In order to be arrested for saying something it has to be either a threat of physical harm or direct harassment of an individual. It is perfectly legal to be a bigot, we still have a handful of neonazis and such, they're free to speak their opinions and the rest of us are free to think they're idiots. Trying to fight ideas and beliefs with force simply doesn't work, it only drives it underground.
 

Offline Zero999Topic starter

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #169 on: June 29, 2023, 07:09:11 pm »
There's nothing wrong with hate. It's a perfectly normal human emotion. A good number of crimes are motivated by hate. I don't see why the punishment should be any different, whether the motive is greed, hate or lust. Perhaps the punishment could be lighter if it was accidental i.e. carelessness.

Yes, there is something wrong with hate. 
What's wrong with hate?
Quote
The crime committed may be relatively innocuous, such as placing something on a lawn.  But if the message sent was onerous enough, it requires a much more severe punishment.
Why?

I think that even where you are, if you start racist shit you'll be taken in, won't you? But that's just sticks and stones. As is transgender stuff (which has also resulted in a court appearance here). So, way back in this thread, coppice said (in response to you, and with my emphasis):
They only do something about racism, if it's directed at protected minorities, otherwise it's sticks and stones.

It's not possible to outlaw everything which is unacceptable. As has been hinted at above: it's impossible to determine the rational behind someone's actions and even if it's obvious, it should the their actions which need to be punished. For example burning the pride flag might offend people, but it should be protected free speech. I don't agree with everything Laurence Fox says, but I'm familiar enough with his views to know he wasn't advocating violence. My guess is he disagrees with trans activists, who only represent a tiny minority.
 
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Offline TimFox

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #170 on: June 29, 2023, 07:31:47 pm »
Several posters have given their opinion that a crime (e.g., assault) stands on its own and the motivation (e.g., hatred) is irrelevant to the legal proceedings.
Based on my reading of current US Federal Law (as I discussed above), the laws in the United States about "hate crime" vs. "regular crime" can be summarized as follows:
1.  If you hate a person for an individual reason (e.g., he's a jerk, he's your boss, he stole your girlfriend), you cannot control your emotions, and you assault him, that is a "regular crime".
2.  If you hate a recognizable group (e.g. race, religion, sexual orientation) and commit assault against a random member of that group or a larger number (e.g., congregation), the law may presume that this act was not only an assault on the specific victims, but an attempt to intimidate the larger group.  In that case, the statutes against "hate crime" may come into effect.
I don't know what Magna Carta says about that issue in other countries.
 

Offline gnuarm

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #171 on: June 29, 2023, 07:50:22 pm »
There's nothing wrong with hate. It's a perfectly normal human emotion. A good number of crimes are motivated by hate. I don't see why the punishment should be any different, whether the motive is greed, hate or lust. Perhaps the punishment could be lighter if it was accidental i.e. carelessness.

Yes, there is something wrong with hate. 
What's wrong with hate?

When combined with illegal acts, it can be a form of terrorism.  I suppose it is not actually the "hate" that is the crime, it is the action. 


Quote
Quote
The crime committed may be relatively innocuous, such as placing something on a lawn.  But if the message sent was onerous enough, it requires a much more severe punishment.
Why?

The example of placing something on the lawn should clarify the matter.  If you throw toilet paper in someone's trees as a prank, that's simply a nuisance.  If you place a burning cross on someone's lawn, that sends a message of hate,  which will almost certainly cause fear by the recipient. 

Yes, that requires a stronger punishment.  If you can't see that, I don't know what you are missing.

Quote
I think that even where you are, if you start racist shit you'll be taken in, won't you? But that's just sticks and stones. As is transgender stuff (which has also resulted in a court appearance here). So, way back in this thread, coppice said (in response to you, and with my emphasis):
They only do something about racism, if it's directed at protected minorities, otherwise it's sticks and stones.

Huh?  Who else would racist acts be directed toward?  I'm not following what you are saying.


Quote
It's not possible to outlaw everything which is unacceptable. As has been hinted at above: it's impossible to determine the rational behind someone's actions and even if it's obvious, it should the their actions which need to be punished. For example burning the pride flag might offend people, but it should be protected free speech. I don't agree with everything Laurence Fox says, but I'm familiar enough with his views to know he wasn't advocating violence. My guess is he disagrees with trans activists, who only represent a tiny minority.

Some things are protected free speech, others are not.  Burning a flag is not in itself illegal.  That some people find it offensive is not a legal issue.  The point is if the act was done in a way that violated the laws. 

Most of these sorts of conversations hinge on the definition of words.  Calling it a "hate" crime is not actually useful.  To understand the law, requires reading the actual text of the law, and how it is enforced.  Often, in discussions, people make up examples that have never happened.  But in any case, most people are just arguing, without dealing with reality.
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Offline Zero999Topic starter

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #172 on: June 29, 2023, 08:24:55 pm »
There's nothing wrong with hate. It's a perfectly normal human emotion. A good number of crimes are motivated by hate. I don't see why the punishment should be any different, whether the motive is greed, hate or lust. Perhaps the punishment could be lighter if it was accidental i.e. carelessness.

Yes, there is something wrong with hate. 
What's wrong with hate?

When combined with illegal acts, it can be a form of terrorism.  I suppose it is not actually the "hate" that is the crime, it is the action. 
I agree.

Quote
Quote
Quote
The crime committed may be relatively innocuous, such as placing something on a lawn.  But if the message sent was onerous enough, it requires a much more severe punishment.
Why?

The example of placing something on the lawn should clarify the matter.  If you throw toilet paper in someone's trees as a prank, that's simply a nuisance.  If you place a burning cross on someone's lawn, that sends a message of hate,  which will almost certainly cause fear by the recipient. 

Yes, that requires a stronger punishment.  If you can't see that, I don't know what you are missing.
What about my lawn? If I want to burn a cross on it, then should have every right to do so.
Quote
Quote
I think that even where you are, if you start racist shit you'll be taken in, won't you? But that's just sticks and stones. As is transgender stuff (which has also resulted in a court appearance here). So, way back in this thread, coppice said (in response to you, and with my emphasis):
They only do something about racism, if it's directed at protected minorities, otherwise it's sticks and stones.

Huh?  Who else would racist acts be directed toward?  I'm not following what you are saying.
The majority, who are subject to systemic racism, by certain big organisations, in the name of diversity, inclusion and equity.

Quote
Quote
It's not possible to outlaw everything which is unacceptable. As has been hinted at above: it's impossible to determine the rational behind someone's actions and even if it's obvious, it should the their actions which need to be punished. For example burning the pride flag might offend people, but it should be protected free speech. I don't agree with everything Laurence Fox says, but I'm familiar enough with his views to know he wasn't advocating violence. My guess is he disagrees with trans activists, who only represent a tiny minority.

Some things are protected free speech, others are not.  Burning a flag is not in itself illegal.  That some people find it offensive is not a legal issue.  The point is if the act was done in a way that violated the laws. 

Most of these sorts of conversations hinge on the definition of words.  Calling it a "hate" crime is not actually useful.  To understand the law, requires reading the actual text of the law, and how it is enforced.  Often, in discussions, people make up examples that have never happened.  But in any case, most people are just arguing, without dealing with reality.
The law in many parts of the world, especially Europe has slowly being shifting towards criminalising anything which might offend a minority. Now we have co-operations such as Amazon, who are taking the law into their own hands, by penalising customers who they believe are guilty of offending a minority. We need to fight this. Not allowing them to control your home with IoT is a start, but there are other ways they can come after you. 
 
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Offline coppice

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #173 on: June 29, 2023, 09:06:24 pm »
Quote
I've noticed as society has become progressively safer, the bar to what constitutes harm has been lowered.
When seat belts became compulsory A&E departments went quiet, then the injured slowly crept back up. Saying the best safety measure for a car is a big spike sticking out of the middle of the steering wheel is not just said in jest. People slowly bring their risks to some equilibrium. Now society has become so safe they are making up bogus risks to achieve some weird kind of equilibrium.
 

Offline james_s

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #174 on: June 29, 2023, 09:09:09 pm »
Quote
I've noticed as society has become progressively safer, the bar to what constitutes harm has been lowered.
When seat belts became compulsory A&E departments went quiet, then the injured slowly crept back up. Saying the best safety measure for a car is a big spike sticking out of the middle of the steering wheel is not just said in jest. People slowly bring their risks to some equilibrium. Now society has become so safe they are making up bogus risks to achieve some weird kind of equilibrium.

I think there is some truth to that. Cars in my opinion are too safe now, they go to absurd lengths for safety which makes them very complicated and expensive and a lot of these safety assist features simply enable people to engage in risky behavior.
 


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