KPTV: New dashboard allows Portlanders to see city’s response to reported homeless camps. “City of Portland’s Homelessness and Urban Camping Impact Reduction Program has launched a new website that will allow Portlanders to see how crews are responding to reported homeless campsites. The dashboard launched on Wednesday and gives the public the ability to see in detail how reports are being handled.”
KGW: Fake review attack targets Portland businesses. “KGW Investigates learned of at least twenty pest control companies in the Portland metro area that have received dozens of fake one-star reviews on their Google business profiles over the last year. The reviews were not left by unhappy customers with a gripe — they’re fake, computer-generated and designed to hurt a company’s reputation. The fake reviews have lowered the companies’ Google ratings, cost them thousands of dollars in lost revenue and tarnished the reliability of the rating system for consumers.”
Techdirt: FBI Sent A Special Task Force To Portland To ‘Exploit’ Phones Taken From Protesters . “The Fly Teams have been in existence since shortly after the 9/11 attacks in 2001. But until now, they’ve mainly been foreign-focused — either operating in other countries or targeting foreign terrorists. This breaks some new ground in a disturbing way: counterterrorist activity targeting US citizens, some of which have engaged in nothing more than exercising their First Amendment rights.”
CNN: Portland passes broadest facial recognition ban in the US. “The city of Portland, Oregon, on Wednesday banned the use of facial-recognition technology by city departments — including local police — as well as public-facing businesses such as stores, restaurants and hotels.”
OPB: Portland Takes Database Of Unreinforced Masonry Buildings Offline. “Want to find out if you live in a Portland building particularly vulnerable in an earthquake? You won’t be able to do it online any longer. Portland has quietly agreed to take down its online database detailing the approximately 1,600 old brick and stone buildings in the city considered likely to collapse in the next major earthquake.”
Willamette Week: Instagram Account “Pdxscootermess” Is Portland’s Photo Archive of Dead Scooters. “If there’s one thing smartphone-clad masses love documenting as much as latte art and bathroom selfies it’s scooter carnage. That’s what prompted one Portlander to start an Instagram account titled @pdxscootermess, which looks for ‘”any and all evidence of scooter (and bikeshare) chaos in Portland Oregon.’”
The Portland Mercury: Peep The Library’s Photo Archive of Portland’s Black Community. “The Multnomah County Library just launched a new digital collection of photos and documents chronicling Portland’s African American community over the years. Called ‘Our Story: Portland Through an African American Lens,’ the collection melds archives from Oregon Historical Society Research Library, Oregon State University, and City of Portland Archives.”
State Scoop: Portland’s new crime map shows how far data transparency has come. “Cities once merely dumped their data online without a plan. Today, portals like this one are shaping policy and guiding grander designs in community engagement and policing.”
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