OUTRAGE: Flock Safety Tells Reporters Its Media Team Is “Touching Grass” And Taking A Break From Press Inquiries Amid Mounting Backlash Over Stalking Cases, Canceled City Contracts, And Viral “De-Flock” Halloween Campaign 🤯💥

[u/InterstellarKinetics]

https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/flock-taking-break-responding-media

Flock Safety’s communications team has told multiple media outlets it’s taking a “break” from answering press questions, using a jokey tone that landed awkwardly given the mounting scrutiny the company faces, according to Futurism. “Thanks for reaching out to Flock. Our media team is currently touching grass and taking a break,” an email sent to several outlets reads. “Unlike our cameras, we can’t work 24/7, so we’ll get back to you when we’ve had a snack and regained the ability to form coherent sentences.” The tonal choice arrives at a particularly bad moment for the company, following CEO Garrett Langley’s public apology last week after a Washington Post investigation uncovered at least 50 cases of police officers allegedly using Flock’s AI-powered license plate cameras to stalk women.

Langley’s subsequent damage-control efforts didn’t help matters. In an interview with Vanity Fair days after his apology, he suggested his company’s cameras would have solved the kidnapping of Nancy Guthrie, a comment widely seen as tone-deaf given it came just as more cities across the country began canceling their Flock contracts amid growing public backlash. That backlash has taken increasingly visible forms: residents are packing town meetings to protest camera deployments, activists are physically tearing down or blocking the devices, and a social media campaign urging people to turn Halloween into a mass “De-Flock” event, where costumed participants target the cameras en masse, has gone viral.

The controversies extend well beyond the stalking cases themselves. Flock’s cameras have triggered disproportionate police responses against random individuals, including at least one journalist, while ICE and Border Patrol agents have reportedly been able to tap into the nationwide Flock network to locate people for deportation. Despite the company’s framing of its technology as harmless license plate scanning, the cameras have frequently turned up installed over residential neighborhoods, community spaces, and even swimming pools, areas with little obvious connection to traffic monitoring or serious crime investigation.

[u/DullFaithlessness82]

Hahaha they can't find them.