@Hobyrim See, that's why stringent legal processes are ESPECIALLY essential for severe & irreversible punishments like the death penalty.

If you require a high enough standard of evidence to preclude any possibility of a mistake for such punishments, the ethical problem with them goes away.

Sure, that means only a very tiny minority of cases that might otherwise qualify for severe/irreversible punishment will see it meted out, but those few cases will still stand out as stark examples.

@awnaves well that's why it's so insidious. Like do I really care if something bad happens to someone who caused a lifetime of pain to someone else? Nah.

But I do care that the data validation is right.

I do care that it's a judge and jury exacting judgment instead of Ross from three towns down.

@Hobyrim I do agree that vigilantes are not the answer in any situation.

@Hobyrim @awnaves But people here are calling teachers and librarians groomers. The local sheriff was fine with the militia doing a citizens arrest and they wanted to hang my governor. A lot going on.... Yikes

@Klaatu_Veratta_Nectarine @awnaves exactly. And while I hear the groomer thing and I know it's just a weapon in the cultural war I am getting uneasy here.

I think one thing that's making it worse is that when Twitter isn't porn bots or stupidity, it's a bunch of posts that feel like they are meant to desensitize people to death and images of people being killed.

@Klaatu_Veratta_Nectarine @Hobyrim

I should clarify that I don't have an issue with legally convicted sex offender info being readily available for the safety of those they might prey upon. A list cultivated by individuals is never a good thing though. Some may be valid but I agree that there is too much opportunity for bad actors to toss out innocent names for their own purposes.

@SaltyVeruca exactly which is great when you go and look it up on a dot gov website.

What happens when you start getting more and more apps that promise to do the record checking for you.

If I say app [insert app name here] has a 30% false rate of identifying people wrong as convicted offenders, do you think people will listen, or will I get shouted down by people saying I am sticking up for the criminals?

If you get listed in an app falsely, do you think you can ever clear your name?

@Hobyrim I have no idea what apps you're referencing.

@SaltyVeruca this is one of them.

There are dozens of similar apps on Google Play store.

@Hobyrim I'm assuming these would pull from available registry data already inexistence. Do you know if this is not the case?

@SaltyVeruca you have to assume they are pulling from public registry yes. You dont know if that's the case for sure though.

I understand I am taking a bit of a paranoid and unpopular position here, but I also know that as everyone becomes more siloed online, the easier it becomes to fake data.

@Hobyrim Of course but unless you have a personal concern, I wouldn't stress. Anything is possible if you think about it in terms of data manipulation. At any rate, my father has been on registry nearly thirty years and is still alive and well, so I shouldn't think vigilante antics are too popular. They're welcome to him though.

@SaltyVeruca I hear you. You understand this on a different level. Appreciate the dialogue.