SketchFactor ... is a Manhattan-based navigation app that crowdsources user experiences along with publicly available data to rate the relative "sketchiness" of certain areas in major cities. [...]
The founders are also bracing for potential complications from an app that asks anonymous users to judge a neighborhood's sketchiness. After all, fear can be subjective. And the site could be vulnerable to criticisms regarding the degree to which race is used to profile a neighborhood.
— crainsnewyork.com
17 Comments
God forbid anyone experience new things, or meet people unlike themselves! Or take the time to learn more than superficial generalities about the place they live!
Thank you, SketchFactor!
urbanism for suburbanites
I've been saying ever since I got my first car GPS 10 years ago that this technology makes us stupid: we don't *have* to learn to read our environment for clues anymore, so our brains stop paying attention to outside phenomena and then stop learning.
If people ignore the social clues of their surroundings along with the built clues, then eventually they'll no longer be able to function in the social world at all and will just drop out of the physical community entirely, thus leaving the world to those of us who actually enjoy interacting with other people and our physical surroundings. I see this as a positive development!
If these people get mugged, it'll be because they're busy staring at their phones.
How about SchmukFactor for where these people, can we crowdsource that? Taking fear viral, that would defiantly qualify.
SchmuckFackter, I'm on it.
perhaps this will slow the spread of gentrification.
on a serious note maybe at least this app will spark discussions about why exactly it is problematic.
also hating is for haters but perhaps the glam graffiti background for the headshot doesn't help the perception that this is somewhat out of touch:)
There are still sketchy neighborhoods in NYC? Well, at least ones you could accidently end up in after a long night of drinking?
DoucheAlert©, the app that tracks people you want to avoid and warns you when they get close. Excellent for warning of surprise visits by the boss or keeping the girlfriend away from the wife.
Ahhh technology being used for racial steering. Progress!
can we invent an app that detects people with the sketchfactor app so we can find easy mugging targets? I call it pussyfactor. It will be a huge hit with the blacks.
http://www.examiner.com/article/d-c-news-crew-robbed-news-crew-reporting-on-racist-locality-app-robbed
A news crew that went to check out a neighborhood in Washington DC shown on SketchFactor as Very Sketchy runs into a few difficulties...
“I'm not going to call it a ‘sketchy’ neighborhood, but as folks were telling us that it was a good neighborhood, and that not much activity happens around there — as that was being told to us, our van was being robbed,” WUSA9 reporter Mola Lenghi said.
LOOOOOOOL
No one is denying that sketchy areas exist; it's just we shouldn't call them that cause, you know, that's not cool and shit.
How about an app that calls the police automatically when you enter a bad area just in case something happens.
Calling the police is just as likely to get you shot as it is to get you help. If you're in the wrong neighborhood you're clearly there on dubious business.
Wear a suit if you have to go there. Cops look out for suits.
True^
Wow! What a photo of these two people! This is what they offer society; racism with a smile. Although, these are exactly the people I do not want to see in my neighborhood. So perhaps they deserve all the praise they are getting.
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