RateMyCop.com

Add links
This is a good article. Click here for more information.
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

RateMyCop
Screenshot
The homepage of RateMyCop on March 17, 2017
Created byGino Sesto
Rebecca Costell
URLratemycop.com (defunct)
RegistrationOptional
LaunchedFebruary 28, 2008; 16 years ago (2008-02-28)
Current statusShut down

RateMyCop.com (also stylized RATEMYCOP.com

domain hosts
twice, and a user being arrested for posting on the website.

The website received mixed to negative reception from police officers and their associates, hinging on the danger it could have posed to officers in duty, the possibility of personal information being posted on the website, and the lack of personal accountability for what was posted. Other officers remained unconcerned with it, or even wanted to use it or similar websites as tools for communication with the public. RateMyCop.com has been frequently cited as an example of how Web 2.0 technologies like social computing could affect the transparency of services provided by governments.

History

RateMyCop.com started out as an

police officers from more than 500 police departments in the United States.[9] The site is no longer operational, but was last archived on the Internet Archive on March 17, 2017, by which point there were over 300,000 officers from nearly 20,000 departments in their database.[10]

Utah State Senate bill

Before the website's official launch on February 28, 2008, a bill was proposed in the Utah State Senate with the goal of allowing police to withhold misconduct reports from the public. This was prompted by RateMyCop.com's requests for misconduct reports on every police officer in every agency in the state. It was sponsored by Republican politician Chris Buttars, who claimed the bill would only encompass non-criminal reports.[11] Buttars later regretted sponsoring the bill, asking his colleagues in the senate to vote against the bill. He commented that he wanted the bill to "conceal disciplinary actions" if the officer in question had been acquitted, which was contrary to the sweeping protections it provided for all records of misdeeds committed by them.[12]

Domain hosting issues

On March 11, 2008,

terabyte bandwidth limit, but Sesto doubted this explanation, as the site had only 80,000 connected users that day and 400,000 the previous day.[9]

A day later, the web-hosting service

Rackspace began hosting the website, before being shortly removed because it "could create a risk to the health and safety of law enforcement officers", said Rackspace's senior corporate counsel Beth Sherfy. They soon found a third domain host, which Sesto would not identify.[3]

Prosecution of user under Florida law

In 2007, Florida resident Robert Brayshaw was investigated by

conclusively dismissed in April 2009 because they violated Florida's speedy trial law.[13]

Brayshaw subsequently sued the city of Tallahassee and the state attorney in September 2009 with the assistance of the

free speech. Brayshaw received US$60,000 (equivalent to $84,000 in 2023[15]) in damages and legal fees,[14] $25,000 of which was ordered to be given in legal expenses by the city of Tallahassee for his false arrest.[16][13]

Content

RateMyCop.com allowed for registered users to search for officers by their name, department, or state, in addition to allowing users to provide anonymous

undercover police in their database.[5] Comments on the website were moderated, with threats being removed. According to Costell, serious threats were reported to police.[6]

Reception

Less than a month after its inception in February 2008, the website was receiving 100,000 visitors a day. Site founder Sesto estimated at the time that "at least half" of the website's userbase were police officers.[21]

RateMyCop.com received mostly negative reception from law enforcement. Kevin Martin of the San Francisco Police Officers Association worried that users of the website would have access to officers' personal information, like home addresses or personal phone numbers. Jerry Dyer, president of California Police Chiefs Associations, criticized the website for allowing police officers to "face unfair maligning without any opportunity to defend themselves". He noted that the organization would work with other law enforcement organizations to stop the website from operating.[22] Similarly, citing that the website puts officers in danger, vice president of the Latino Police Officers Association, Hector Basurto, also wanted to see the website gone.[23]

Other police officers remained unconcerned with the content of the website. Ruben Vasquez, president of the

Saginaw police officers union, commented on the lack of verification associated with anonymous reports on the website, and said that they have "more serious things to be concerned with", like the safety of the city and its citizens.[2] Similarly, Mike Tellef, speaking on behalf of the Peoria police department, explained that they would use the website as a tool and that they welcome the feedback: "We have an obligation to ensure that the services that we're providing to the public are the utmost and the best that we can give them for their taxpayer dollar".[24]

Salt Lake City police chief Chris Burbank said the website did not raise any privacy concerns for him, and that he wanted the department to start a similar feedback forum on their website.[25] Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office spokesperson Larry McKinnon said that the department did not take the website seriously, and that they did not use it for internal affairs issues, as they were already giving out forms for people in the community to provide feedback. Another spokesperson for the department, Andrea Davis, noted that anonymous feedback was not used for rating the performance of their officers.[26]

Fiorella de Cindio and Cristian Peraboni at the University of Milan commented on the possible danger of RateMyCop.com and similar websites in regard to their lack of accountability concerning comments provided by anonymous individuals. They suggested that civic accountability could be effective when citizens assumed their actual identities in online communities.[27] Pasco County Sheriff's spokesperson Kevin Doll named a similar concern: "You know nothing about the people posting those comments and that in itself is a danger".[26] Writing for The Times, Sathnam Sanghera called the website a "truly dangerous idea" and a "recipe for disaster", after commenting that the police are exposed to the "criminally insane" more often than others are.[28] On the talk show The O'Reilly Factor, host Bill O'Reilly reflected on the website's lack of verifiability in regard to user comments, calling it dangerous.[29]

Jacqui Cheng of Ars Technica also commented on the website's potential for abuse, but that it could be likely to skew the other way too; she noted that among the top rated officers, one user had left five-star reviews across the entire country. She also thought the police's privacy concerns to be unfounded, as the information posted on the website would have already been public, and would have been protected by free speech laws.[30] Her first comments on potential abuse were mirrored by University of Southern California law professor Thomas D. Griffith, remarking that "unconfirmed reports that can be over-praising or condemning is not the best way to ensure accountability".[21]

Legacy

RateMyCop.com has been among the most frequently cited examples of review site initiatives to provide citizens with the ability to provide feedback to public services provided by governments.

The College at Brockport, as an example of a larger trend enabled by Web 2.0 technologies to assess the quality of civil servants. He further noted that sites like it suggest a strong possibility of change in the power dynamic between experts and users.[32] Similarly, the website has also been given as an example of "social reporting" that allows the people within a given community to gather information and comments for collective assessment of the quality of public officials.[33] Researchers at the Joint Research Centre proposed that social computing on websites like RateMyCop.com has led to the "increased transparency of government institutions, their services and their employees",[34] in addition to enabling greater "accountability of the public sector and governance systems".[35]

The website helped inspire the Landman Report Card, a tool for landowners to grade landmen (i.e. oil and gas industry representatives) that they have negotiated mineral rights with.[36]

Notes

  1. stars.[18]

References

  1. ^ "About Us". RateMyCop.com. Archived from the original on November 19, 2016.
  2. ^ a b c Burns, Gus (May 14, 2010). "Saginaw Police union president unconcerned with officer/department rating website". The Saginaw News. Archived from the original on May 27, 2022.
  3. ^ a b c Cathcart, Rebecca (March 22, 2008). "Irked by a Ticket? Now Drivers Can Rate the Officer Who Issued It". The New York Times. Archived from the original on December 6, 2012.
  4. ^ "Web Site Rates Officers: Ratemycop.com lets citizens critique cops" (PDF). The Broward Centurion. Vol. 11, no. 6. Broward County Police Benevolent Association. June 2008. p. 7. Archived (PDF) from the original on August 5, 2016.
  5. ^ a b "Internet Service Shuts Off Site for Rating Cops". The Bryant Park Project. NPR. March 14, 2008. Archived from the original on May 26, 2008.
  6. ^ a b Phua, Chelsea (March 11, 2008). "Cop rater Web site will bring out the haters, critics say". The Sacramento Bee. p. B1, B3.
  7. ^ Ruch, John (April 18, 2008). "Web site rates local cops". Jamaica Plain Gazette. Archived from the original on December 15, 2021.
  8. The Times Recorder
    . p. 1.
  9. ^ a b Poulsen, Kevin. "GoDaddy Silences Police-Watchdog Site RateMyCop.com – Update". Wired. Archived from the original on April 3, 2009.
  10. ^ "Home". RateMyCop.com. Archived from the original on March 17, 2017.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  11. ^ Glines, Jonny (February 12, 2008). "New Bill To Allow Police Misconduct Be Hidden From Public". KUTV. Archived from the original on February 17, 2008.
  12. ^ Dethman, Leigh (February 23, 2008). "Buttars blasts his own bill on police records". Deseret News. Archived from the original on May 27, 2022.
  13. ^
    TC Palm. Archived
    from the original on December 10, 2011.
  14. ^ a b Kravets, David (July 2, 2010). "RateMyCop User Ensnared in 'Dumbest Case Ever'". Wired. Archived from the original on June 5, 2014.
  15. ^ 1634–1699: McCusker, J. J. (1997). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States: Addenda et Corrigenda (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1700–1799: McCusker, J. J. (1992). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1800–present: Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. "Consumer Price Index (estimate) 1800–". Retrieved February 29, 2024.
  16. ^ "Federal Court Strikes Down Florida Statute That Criminalized Free Speech when Criticizing Police Officers". ACLU of Florida (Press release). May 3, 2010.
  17. ^ "FAQs". RateMyCop.com. Archived from the original on November 19, 2016.
  18. ^ Foxman, Adam (December 4, 2008). "RateMyCop.com criticized by police". Ventura County Star – via Gale OneFile.
  19. ^ a b "Web Site Draws Cops' Wrath". CBS News. March 24, 2008. Archived from the original on June 29, 2018.
  20. ^ Stewart, Nicole (March 21, 2008). "Web site seeks ratings of police". The Arizona Republic (The Tempe Republic ed.). p. 5.
  21. ^ a b Uranga, Rachel (March 25, 2008). "Web site lets users rate their local cops – good and bad". Los Angeles Daily News. Archived from the original on March 29, 2008.
  22. Police1. March 10, 2008. Archived from the original
    on April 13, 2008.
  23. ^ Roman, Tomas (March 7, 2008). "Police agencies upset over Ratemycop.com". ABC7. Archived from the original on March 11, 2008.
  24. ^ "Valley Police Listed On Ratings Web Site". KTAR-FM. March 5, 2008. Archived from the original on May 16, 2011 – via KPHO-TV.
  25. ^ Robinson, Jeff (March 10, 2008). "New Site Lists Names of Salt Lake City Police Officers". KCPW-FM. Archived from the original on February 17, 2009.
  26. ^
    Gale OneFile
    .
  27. ISBN 978-3-642-02773-4. Archived (PDF) from the original on May 27, 2022. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help
    )
  28. ^ Sanghera, Sathnam (January 27, 2009). "When the nameless are this shameless, the feedback frenzy has gone too far". The Times. p. 7 – via Gale Academic OneFile.
  29. Fox News Network
    – via Gale OneFile.
  30. ^ Cheng, Jacqui (March 13, 2008). "RateMyCop takedown sparks debate over speech, privacy". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on March 3, 2022.
  31. ISBN 9780262297554. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help
    )
  32. ISBN 9781466600720
    .
  33. ISBN 9783902505354. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help
    )
  34. ISSN 1018-5593. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help
    )
  35. ISBN 978-92-79-13813-3. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 8, 2017. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help
    )
  36. ISBN 9780822372981. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help
    )
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=RateMyCop.com&oldid=1207435857"