Posted on 09/07/2013 11:56:38 AM PDT by lbryce
A service called "Ghetto Tracker" appeared online at the beginning of this week and quickly drew criticism for its racist and classist overtones. Shortly after, the site was renamed "Good Part of Town." Its creator, who would only identify himself as a 30-something-year-old in Tallahassee, Fla., told Gawker: "This was originally seriously developed as a travel tool and the name 'Ghetto Tracker' was meant to be something that people would remember."
The basic premise of Ghetto Tracker/Good Part of Town — to crowdsource travel advice -– actually isn’t so outrageous, but the framing, even without the word "Ghetto" in the name, and the intention — to label whole geographic areas as "good" or "bad," "safe" and "unsafe" — make the operation distasteful.
When does technology step over that line from being merely useful to becoming insidiously stereotype enforcing? In the growing field of geo-web applications, incorporating safety judgments into navigational aids is becoming increasingly common. Accusations of reinforcing racist or classist stereotypes could be lobbed at any of those apps. "In any form," writes Emily Badger at The Atlantic Cities, "this idea toes a touchy line between a utilitarian application of open data and a sly wink toward people who just want to steer clear of 'those kinds of neighborhoods.'"
So how should we think about these apps? When does technology step over that line from being merely useful to becoming insidiously stereotype enforcing?
Anyone can investigate a neighborhood by looking up local crime rates, median income and demographics online — not to mention the information gleaned from word-of-mouth reports. To perform such research and then make a decision about traveling to a particular area involves critical thinking, which is hardly objectionable. The ethical problem occurs when your mobile device takes over that thinking for you.
Microsoft’s Pedestrian Route Production technology, patented in January 2012 and immediately dubbed the "avoid-ghetto app" by many in the media, was designed to one day let Windows Phone users filter walking routes according to "weather information, crime statistics, [and] demographic information." According to the language of the patent, such filtering is useful because "if it is relatively cold outside, then a pedestrian is far more likely to feel an impact then [sic] if a vehicle equipped with a heating system protected her. Moreover, it can be more dangerous for a pedestrian to enter an unsafe neighborhood then [sic] a person in a vehicle since a pedestrian is more exposed and it is more difficult for her to leave an unsafe neighborhood quickly." It makes sense to keep safety in mind while navigating an unfamiliar area on foot, but letting a computer algorithm divert you from a particular neighborhood on account of statistics is problematic.
There’s another feature mentioned in the Microsoft patent that deserves scrutiny: the ability to sell route directions. Corporations could pay to have the app send users through routes with carefully plotted advertising campaigns. If your GPS system directed you to turn down one street rather than a parallel one just so you’d encounter a specific poster, would it do so with your consent?
We know how and why the U.S.Postal Service carries our mail. Private corporations are often not as transparent. Jim Thatcher, a geographer at Clark University, says our increasing reliance on mobile spatial technologies opens the door for something he calls "teleological redlining," in which applications "make it very easy to malign certain areas" and can even "obliterate" the possibility of our encountering certain people, places and events. What’s more, these applications are generally presented to us as "neutral." We often forget to consider the motivations and biases at work behind the scenes.
Our experiences have always been mediated by technology, Thatcher says, but these days that technology is increasingly opaque to its users — that is, few of us actually understand the mechanisms behind it. How many people know exactly how an email gets from one inbox to another? In contrast, the way the USPS transports letters is clear to us. Understanding the mechanisms is a key part of understanding the motivations driving these systems.
"If I go online and look up crime reports for a certain area," Thatcher says, "and decide that five murders on this street is too much for me," then he's aware of his own motivations for staying away from that street. On the other hand, when a mobile app performs a similar analysis for a user, the user cannot be aware of the motivations behind the final decision. Whether the app is incorrectly linking poverty to danger or instead choosing a route laid out by an advertiser, the user’s instinct is to follow the directions. Blind trust kicks in.
As mobile devices get smarter and more ubiquitous, it is tempting to let technology make more and more decisions for us. But doing so will require us to sacrifice one of our favorite assumptions: that these tools are inherently logical and neutral. As "Good Part of Town"-née-"Ghetto Tracker" suggests, even innocuous information can send charged messages if it’s bundled or filtered in a certain way. And as Thatcher points out, the motivations driving the algorithms may not match the motivations of those algorithms' users
When does technology step over that line from being merely useful to becoming insidiously stereotype enforcing?
Whether you agree this device enforces stereotypical characterization or is a tool that provides practical, useful information, the fact is PC is becoming unacceptably more intrusive on our lives in ways never imagined, opening you mind to the realization the end is nowhere in sight.
To those of us in the decidedly non-PC camp, the increasing encroachment of convoluted PC ideology is more a case of putting the cart before the horse in a way that demonstrates left-wing, liberal mindthink run amok as seen here.
That crime exists to varying degrees in demographically distinct realms unto themselves has always been a consideration, way of life as means to avoid being in harm's way. Would a practitioner of convoluted PC ideology even suggest that the use of statistical guidelines as means to traversing the urban jungle be frowned upon as being that of PC heresy? Even the most ardent among them would be hard pressed to muster a rationale for just such idiocy.
So, why should a device utilizing the very same principle evoke more of the same illogical PC rage?
I stay away from any Martin Luther King Blvd. Case Closed.
LOL. Brilliant tool for urban dwellers seeking preservation of the human species.
Same reporter sees no problem with the FIND A FAGGOT APP.
My guess is that if Svati Kirsten Narula suffers a couple of severe beat downs in the wrong zip code she might just want to privately download Ghetto Tracker.
Not having your skull bashed in tops PC feel-good any day of the week.
>> but letting a computer algorithm divert you from a particular neighborhood on account of statistics is problematic.
Why?
Mindless PC Multiculturalism, or any answer that boils down to same, is not an acceptable answer, Svati.
My advice is to never live anywhere that has public transportation.
No public transportation = no ghetto dwellers!
Just start drawing concentric circles outward from the intersection of MLK Blvd. and Trayvon Martin Plaza.
Stereotypes exist for a reason. See my tagline.
Just don't go anywhere near it and you will be fine.
Bet the media doesn’t feel the same way when they pre-filter news stories for the masses.
LOL. Brilliant tool for urban dwellers seeking preservation of the human species.
Either Android or Microsofts cell phone operating system at one had an “Avoid Ghetto” feature of their GPS map and routing system.
The app was written because a lot of people were getting robbed or assaulted because their cell phone GPS system inadvertently routed them through a very bad section of town, which was becoming a real problem.
I think Microsoft has a Patent on the concept.
nah, just need a ghetto blaster..
Doesn’t the State Department issue travel warnings for unsafe countries? Isn’t this the same thing?
The real reason for the outrage is that the left thinks that everyone should be treated equally. Whitey should wander into high crime areas and get murdered or robbed just like the people who live there.
The left hates it when Whitey has a ‘special privilege.’
Got news for the left. Non-Whites would have used the app same as Whites.
We need an app like this.
Yep, you don't need an app to know that.
Buffalo once had a beautiful park called "The Promenade". It was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted who laid out much of the city and also designed Central Park.
It is now "Martin Luther King Park" and, yes, your rule-of-thumb applies. Stay out da bushes takes on another meaning there.
Why did they change the title?
“Ghetto Tracker” is actually pretty cool.
And skip the PC sensitivities, Oakland, Philly, Chicago, Camden, etc. DO have ghettos, areas that are literally a threat to your life.
Let everyone who has a problem with this app do a drive at night thru these areas, that should permanently change their mindset (if they’re still alive afterwards)
Interesting that she used the term, “Classist.”
Damn right I’m a Classist.
So an application that helps strangers in town to avoid areas where they have a higher possibility of becoming victims of crime is racist?
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