Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/12/28/porch-thief-collared.html
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I mean, yeah, I had my suspicions. But I trusted Mark Rober. Now I’m not sure I can trust his claim that, “It appears (and I’ve since confirmed) in these two cases, the ‘thieves’ were actually acquaintances of the person helping me,” and he didn’t know. He’s kind of right, his credibility has certainly taken a serious blow.
Only reason I’m willing to entertain the possibility this isn’t another staged video is that, although I don’t trust the police, I can’t see why they would participate in helping some YouTuber go viral.
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The glitter bomb was not a hoax. Part of the footage was staged by his friends that he loaned it out to. Not ALL of the footage.
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Right. I mean, he built the thing and demonstrated it. So what if some of the footage was a dramatization? Does the lack of actual justice porn in every case make the whole video a fake? If nothing else, it is an interesting case study of what components help make a video go viral.
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3 cop cars in less than 10 minutes: impressive.
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Yeah, the target response time in my neighborhood is something like 5-6 minutes and the last police report I saw indicated that they hit that target less than 50% of the time.
@dfaris I think all these videos of busted porch pirates must help discourage this type of crime.
Looks like a tony neighborhood.
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The point there (at least as far as I understand) is that only some of the “busted thief” footage was staged thievery. That what is now remaining are in fact real thieves and the demo footage of him testing and building the device.
So rob stating “it’s all bogus” is in fact a bogus statement TMK.
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I certainly shared it with a couple of people because the idea was so good, and because I was surprised at the number of thieves. But there was, to me, something very weird and dissatisfying in the behavior of the “thieves” when they opened the package.
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I can say from personal experience that sometimes a porch thief does in fact turn out to be your neighbor.
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No. I would not hold it against someone if they decided to “dramatize”, but this was not a dramatization, it was a hoax, and there’s a difference.
It wasn’t “dramatized”, it was staged. A credible engineer and scientist known for valuing the truth lied, knowingly or not, to his audience. Either he was in on the hoax or he trusted someone who was not trustworthy, and there are consequences for the company one chooses to associate with, especially professionally.
I’ll still watch his videos, but I’m not going to trust his honesty nearly as much going forward. And the fact is, he clearly cares about his reputation for honesty too, because he’s contrite for the deception, whether he was in on it or not.
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“It appears (and I’ve since confirmed) in these two cases, the ‘thieves’ were actually acquaintances of the person helping me,” he wrote on Twitter. “I’m really sorry about this. I am responsible for the content that goes on my channel and I should have done more here.
“I can vouch that the reactions were genuine when the package was taken from my house.”
So, he’s saying when he loaned the package to his friends, his friends basically let their friends into the hoax and had them pretend to be thieves.
He’s saying when the package was on his own porch, the captured footage was genuine.
I’m glad we’re finding this out, because the footage where the thieve’s self-narrated their own actions did seem awfully forced.
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“Boy, you DO know you just robbed the chief of police?”
Totally agree, come on Rob, really? Calling it a hoax is pretty deceptive.
For anyone curious, Mark Rober gives the details in the video description, excerpted here
Note about 2 missing the reactions in the video- I was presented with information that caused me to doubt the veracity of 2 of the 5 reactions in the video. These were reactions that were captured during a two week period while the device was at house 2 hours away from where I live. I put a feeler out for people willing to put a package on their porch and this person (who is a friend of a friend) volunteered to help. To compensate them for their time and willingness to risk putting a package on their porch I offered financial compensation for any successful recoveries of the package. It appears (and I’ve since confirmed) in these two cases, the “thieves" were actually acquaintances of the person helping me. From the footage I received from the phones which intentionally only record at specific times, this wasn’t clear to me. I have since removed those reactions from the original video (originally 6:26-7:59). I’m really sorry about this. Ultimately, I am responsible for the content that goes on my channel and I should have done more here. I can vouch for that the reactions were genuine when the package was taken from my house. Having said that, I know my credibly is sort of shot but I encourage you to look at the types of videos I’ve been making for the past 7 years. This is my first ever video with some kind of “prank" and like I mentioned in the video it’s pretty removed from my comfort zone and I should have done more. I’m especially gutted because so much thought, time, money and effort went into building the device and I hope this doesn’t just taint the entire effort as “fake". It genuinely works (like all the other things I’ve built on my channel) and we’ve made all the code and build info public. Again, I’m sorry for putting something up on my channel that was misleading. That is totally on me and I will take all necessary steps to make sure it won’t happen again.
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Nah, in a Tony neighborhood, nobody calls the cops, and the porch thieves are never seen or heard from again.
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I believe the issue is that he didn’t loan it to friends, he loaned it to acquaintances and then incentivised them to lie by offering to pay them if, and only if, someone “stole” the package.
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I watched most of this with no sound, thought “Needs moar yakkity-sax”, put on headphones … “Oh…”.
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I knew right at the outset this video is fake. That’s not a Porch, that’s an Audi!
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Another false statement by BoingBoing. The “video” is not “a hoax.” I give you three Pinochios.
I live in public housing in downtown Austin that is mainly older folk and a 911 call can generate not only the EMS, but also the police and firemen and sometimes more than one of each in way less than ten minutes. These services (and I’d call police a service) are highly responsive here.
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