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[recollecters]

Welcome to Retrospec™, the last social media network you will ever need. You are one of the few selected to test this exciting new platform based on our cutting-edge algorithms. Less than two hundred invitations have gone out, and membership is not currently open to the public. However, we hope you will come to see how useful Retrospec™ is, given time. We have for your use a variety of features such as text, voice, video, and image posts. We encourage you to explore our many options. Please feel free to use this post as a network mingle. Every toplevel can be considered a new post, and threadjacking is permitted. No NPC response will be given. As a reminder, everything besides uploading a profile picture and information was locked until this post. Usernames are the character's full real AU names, not aliases or chosen nicknames or usernames, and seemed to have filled themselves in; nothing characters do can change or obscure their names currently. Oddly, profile pictures still cannot be swapped out at this time, so hopefully you took a good one.

Comments

[momentaryspring]

Department? The fire department or the police department?

[standalonehuman]

Police department. Officer Togusa, nice to meet you. I actually don't know if firefighters have their accounts tracked. Something to ask.

[momentaryspring]

Oh. Nice to meet you. I don't really know much about the app, either, but it seems like all kinds of people are on it. I thought usually this sort of thing was for high schoolers and college students.

Does your department monitor what you say on the internet? Like do they read everything?

[standalonehuman]

Well. They're supposed to. In practice, not really. The idea is that I'm still acting as a face of the Department, and so I can get in trouble for spilling details of a case or backtalking about a superior.

Or at least they want to make sure I didn't skip off to Tijuana when I said I was sick that weekend.

But they actually don't care about chain letters and cat memes and artsy photographs.

[momentaryspring]

Chain letters are the one thing that SHOULD be off-limits! What good has ever come of them? None, except fleecing children out of some pocket money!

[standalonehuman]

See? There you go. I wouldn't spread that sort of nonsense, but it answers your question about whether my bosses care what I get up to on the internet. They know it's mostly a waste of time.

[momentaryspring]

[argle bargle CHAIN LETTERS]

That makes sense. Do you think they'll look into where this app came from?

[standalonehuman]

Undoubtedly. I already want to look into it, myself.

Did you have to enter in anything when it started? Or did it just already come up with your name already? I didn't put in a password.

[momentaryspring]

I didn't, either. I don't remember it asking for my name, but it could have just taken it from my phone information.

Of course, I also don't remember it asking for permission to do that. However, I'm no expert on phone programs.

[standalonehuman]

Would make sense, that's why it's always coming up with everyone's legal names. Whatever you've got the phone contract under.

Even if you got something a new device, it's impossible to completely wipe all traces of your user identity when you use something. You're still you, you've still got your habits and quirks. A good enough algorithm and, the longer you use something, the faster it'll be able to tell who it is behind the keyboard.

But why would it know who we are before we've even used it yet?

[momentaryspring]

If what you're saying is true, who's to say there isn't some database somewhere that keeps track of your old phones, too?

ARRRGH! Now you're making me paranoid! I can't afford to buy another phone! Isn't there some kind of... Un-Freedom of Information Act?!

[standalonehuman]

Completely. It's definitely violated just about any information privacy regulation I can think of. I don't know what to do about it, but I would say don't waste your money on a new phone.

Bring enough complaints to the city, and the Department will have to investigate. I can try to make some noise internally, but what actually gets the brass to move is citizen complaints.

[momentaryspring]

So if I complain to the city, they might fix this, eh? Alright.

But I've never contacted the city before. Is it City Hall? Should I send a letter?

[angry letters here we come]

[standalonehuman]

I'd say don't do it alone, but start at the local Police Department if you're nervous. What's going to matter is the quantity. I'm still counting up how many people they've got on this app, but if enough people alert the police about it? They'll have to devote resources to it.

[momentaryspring]

Okay. I'll see if anyone else will do it, too