WhatsApp watch groups drive fear

[deesef]

It's really sad that people are paranoid.

It is even more sad that there are so many incidents and actions that perpetuate that paranoia...

 

[Ragnarök]

It's really sad that people are paranoid.

It is even more sad that there are so many incidents and actions that perpetuate that paranoia...

It is sad , but we have a racist government who play the race card , and a Malema openly encouraging violence against a certain group and somehow the people in the city's think they are excluded.

 

[rvZA]

Yeah, close these Whatsapp groups. I will just start forum platforms where people are allowed to share this information and make a boatload of money off it.

 

[Supervan II]

She was dropped and kicked up a stink
"Were we excluding her because she is a coloured woman?"
"She has given up her valuable time to keep people safe"
"Did we know she is the first line of defence"
So she was put back
The group I see has 4 members now. Her, her husband and daughter and one other person (who we think is dead anyway)

Is her name Karen, perhaps?

 

[Fulcrum29]

You're overthinking it too much. It is VERY simple:

If a white person says that there may be a suspicious person in the area...and that suspicious person happens to be a POC....RACISM!!!!!!!!!!!!!! APARTHEID HIT SQUADS ASSEMBLE!!!!!!!!!

Yes, the gist is therein, hence I added the question now related to a deleted Tweet. I am certain 'worse' messages are being sent in community groups where xenophobia is rooted.

To get back on OT. You would have to ask the article author how she would perceive CCTV monitoring within communities. CCTV monitoring in SA have opponents by the loads, except when it is being envisioned by the state applicable to some smart city being planned.

There is advocacy against people being watched and monitored, and there are opponents against people being described. An oddity is that these people don't have an issue when it is done at a mass scale in China tied to a social credit system, but it is a huge issue in the West?

 

[Fulcrum29]

For those interested, the author published a book on the topic back in 2019,

Project MUSE - Cultivating Suspicion: An Ethnography

muse.jhu.edu

or you could read her thesis, she published in 2016,

https://open.uct.ac.za/bitstream/item/23463/thesis_hum_2016_junck_leah_davina.pdf?sequence=1

I skimmed through it, but I noted some parts which would make a good read. I am curious why she published the article 6 years later, to promote her book? Not that I have an issue with it, but it isn't current. My community is not the same community it was 6 years ago.

 

[DA-LION-619]

"THIS! is CNN!"

Haven't read crap like this in a long time. Let's invite the Author to live in Norwood where a family member has had at least 3 individuals inside his yard at all hours of the day jumping over massive walls just to come and have a friendly Chit Chat on a weekly basis...

That could fuel her narrative considering some parts have a very active presence by CAP Security.
You could help her by inviting her then mentioning the story of the Norwood serial killer.

 

[The Trutherizer]

Somebody wrote a book about this? You might as well write a book about how victims of murder should really get their act together to stop being so rudely dead.

 

[RedViking]

Nee manne, julle almal moet bietjie braai en chat rondom die selfde vuur.

 

[emperornemesis]

"Leah Davina Junck, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Cape Town" What she failed to mention was the "out of touch with reality" aspect of her own opinion. As someone who worked in an industry where we were trained to spot suspicious behaviour, I have to say that suspicion mostly start with vagrants. But there in lies the catch, unlike what she inferred, suspicion is just suspicion, and not conviction. Afrikaans people have a word for suspicious people "kwaadgeld", It is unfortunate that in South Africa, black people make up the overwhelming majority of those under suspicion, but also of those convicted and sentenced for crimes. Then when moving from province to province, you find other racial groups taking up second place in each province, but this is largely due to the other race groups all being minorities. Now while someone acting suspicious and comitting a crime are two different things, more often than not the two are linked. A suspicious acting person standing around on a street corner watching cars pass, could very well be a scout for a criminal syndicate. Why would any person venture from their own neighborhood to go stand in a different one for no apparent reason, and at strange times as well. This behaviour is clearly different from that of maids sitting on the sidewalk sharing a conversation, so it creates suspicion among those witnessing it. What the author of the article clearly has an issue with is the pseudo liberal attitudes of those in her neighborhood. She feels that you cannot claim to be impartial and liberal if you find suspicious behaviour suspicious. This is what lead her to writing the article, but what she does not take into account is that criminals do not care about your political affiliations, nor on which side of the political spectrum their intended victim operates. They won't stop to ask whether you are liberal, anc or eff before robbing or killing you, therefor the fear and suspicion of the neighbors are fully justified. What this lady however needs to do instead of getting herself worked up with something out of her control, is try to get laid.

 

[maumau]

If anyone got kicked off our street WhatsApp group it would be me.

8th October last year was a rainy night. At about 9:00 the alarm started going off at our neighbour across the road. It would stop for a few minutes then start again, this carried on for about 20 minutes.

A family member happened to look out of the window and saw a guy wearing a beanie, walking up and down in the rain on the pavement outside said neighbours property shining a weak torch and casing the place. Family member captured it on video. I immediately pressed the panic button and posted the video on our WA group "robbery in progress at number 123". Plenty of responses "are they OK", "anything we can do", "have you phoned the security company". Then a response from the neighbour whose house was being "burgled" - "Err, I'm pretty sure that video is of me, I was trying to find the fault in our electric fence" Arsehole

A few weeks after that I left to go shopping and saw a guy lolling in a car parked on the pavement outside my house. Obviously I was reluctant to leave for a few hours because this stranger knew there would be nobody home. Anyway, as I reversed out I looked at him very pointedly and made certain he saw me take a picture of his car.

I drove off but circled back and parked a few blocks behind his car to watch. After 10 minutes or so he moved his car from one side of the road to the other but continued to sit there, which I thought was odd so I phoned the security company and requested a patrol. Embarrassingly I also posted on the WA group that a vehicle had been parked outside number XYZ for a long time and asked if neighbours were expecting anyone. No replies.

After the security company had investigated I flagged them down. They reported that the guy was an Uber driver who had brought a customer home and was sitting there waiting for another call. Only explanation is that he moved from shade on one side of the road to sun on the other.

Not my proudest moment and I haven't commented on that group for a while.

 

[Solarion]

A little suspicion is not a bad thing. Might save your life.

 

[emperornemesis]

I was part of a few NHW groups and quickly got blocked as it was apparently wrong to call out people for posting 419, bitcoin and luno scams on a group meant for community safety. Worst part it was future victims of these scams who complained and got me blocked. So now I have a "**** you all" attitude to those groups.

 

[now05ster]

If anyone got kicked off our street WhatsApp group it would be me.

8th October last year was a rainy night. At about 9:00 the alarm started going off at our neighbour across the road. It would stop for a few minutes then start again, this carried on for about 20 minutes.

A family member happened to look out of the window and saw a guy wearing a beanie, walking up and down in the rain on the pavement outside said neighbours property shining a weak torch and casing the place. Family member captured it on video. I immediately pressed the panic button and posted the video on our WA group "robbery in progress at number 123". Plenty of responses "are they OK", "anything we can do", "have you phoned the security company". Then a response from the neighbour whose house was being "burgled" - "Err, I'm pretty sure that video is of me, I was trying to find the fault in our electric fence" Arsehole

A few weeks after that I left to go shopping and saw a guy lolling in a car parked on the pavement outside my house. Obviously I was reluctant to leave for a few hours because this stranger knew there would be nobody home. Anyway, as I reversed out I looked at him very pointedly and made certain he saw me take a picture of his car.

I drove off but circled back and parked a few blocks behind his car to watch. After 10 minutes or so he moved his car from one side of the road to the other but continued to sit there, which I thought was odd so I phoned the security company and requested a patrol. Embarrassingly I also posted on the WA group that a vehicle had been parked outside number XYZ for a long time and asked if neighbours were expecting anyone. No replies.

After the security company had investigated I flagged them down. They reported that the guy was an Uber driver who had brought a customer home and was sitting there waiting for another call. Only explanation is that he moved from shade on one side of the road to sun on the other.

Not my proudest moment and I haven't commented on that group for a while.

It happens often on our Telegram group. As mentioned in my previous post everyone on the group know that they are to report any suspicious activity and one or more available security companies will respond.

 

[supersunbird]

This is the type of shīt I get in my neighbourhood group


View attachment 1238846

Those are banned on all my groups, with permanent removal if behaviour is ongoing.

 

[SauRoNZA]

WhatsApp grpups are a pain in the Butt, but a necessary evil.
And yes... she is correct... the comments of "There is a Bravo guy walking down Moepel Street looking at the houses" is all too common.
It's racism in all it's naked glory...
Usually... the guy is a recycler, or a job seeker... or just the council meter reader.

Is it really necessary?

I’m not part of any and I’m just fine for it.

 

[SauRoNZA]

Kak. Even the Bravo SAPS and SANDF members use the NATO phonetic alphabet, and emergency rescue services, and all servicemen and police internationally.

Point of the matter isn’t which alphabet is used, but rather that it’s not relevant in the first place.

And beyond that the fact you only see the Bravos (who are doing nothing) mentioned and never the Whiskeys.

 

[supersunbird]

If anyone got kicked off our street WhatsApp group it would be me.

8th October last year was a rainy night. At about 9:00 the alarm started going off at our neighbour across the road. It would stop for a few minutes then start again, this carried on for about 20 minutes.

A family member happened to look out of the window and saw a guy wearing a beanie, walking up and down in the rain on the pavement outside said neighbours property shining a weak torch and casing the place. Family member captured it on video. I immediately pressed the panic button and posted the video on our WA group "robbery in progress at number 123". Plenty of responses "are they OK", "anything we can do", "have you phoned the security company". Then a response from the neighbour whose house was being "burgled" - "Err, I'm pretty sure that video is of me, I was trying to find the fault in our electric fence" Arsehole

A few weeks after that I left to go shopping and saw a guy lolling in a car parked on the pavement outside my house. Obviously I was reluctant to leave for a few hours because this stranger knew there would be nobody home. Anyway, as I reversed out I looked at him very pointedly and made certain he saw me take a picture of his car.

I drove off but circled back and parked a few blocks behind his car to watch. After 10 minutes or so he moved his car from one side of the road to the other but continued to sit there, which I thought was odd so I phoned the security company and requested a patrol. Embarrassingly I also posted on the WA group that a vehicle had been parked outside number XYZ for a long time and asked if neighbours were expecting anyone. No replies.

After the security company had investigated I flagged them down. They reported that the guy was an Uber driver who had brought a customer home and was sitting there waiting for another call. Only explanation is that he moved from shade on one side of the road to sun on the other.

Not my proudest moment and I haven't commented on that group for a while.

It was indeed little use to only report it after 20 minutes, crowbars gangs are in and out in under 3 minutes if a siren triggers. A suitable message would have been "Does anyone know why siren at *** is going off?"

Uber driver resting is also quite easy to spot, a single black guy in a generally white Toyoto Corolla or Nissan Almera.

 

[supersunbird]

Is it really necessary?

I’m not part of any and I’m just fine for it.

Do you know what is happening crime wise in your neighbourhood (3 most likely crimes) so you can take appropriate steps to prevent yourself falling victim?

If you see something happening, what are you going to do? Nothing? Phone 10111?

 

[supersunbird]

I was part of a few NHW groups and quickly got blocked as it was apparently wrong to call out people for posting 419, bitcoin and luno scams on a group meant for community safety. Worst part it was future victims of these scams who complained and got me blocked. So now I have a "**** you all" attitude to those groups.

Weak admins are weak.