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A retired Penn professor has been blocking Uber Eats robots for months. This week, she got arrested for it (www.phillyvoice.com)

submitted 19 hours ago by UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

126 comments fedilink hide all child comments

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/53250107

Police confirmed they had responded to a report of "criminal mischief involving a robot" on the 1200 block of Filbert Street around 1:16 p.m. on Wednesday. A woman on the scene ignored "multiple commands" to move, they said, resulting in a criminal violation notice for disorderly conduct.

Uber declined to comment.

Marvin, who plans to contest the charge on the grounds of her First Amendment right to protest, has been undeterred by the arrest. She plans to continue blocking Uber Eats robots and chatting with curious passersby who ask what she's doing.

"It allows me to talk to people about what's going on," she said. "It's always very interesting conversations that we have, and I think it's good to have those kinds of conversations in public space."

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[–] douglasg14b@lemmy.world 0 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Okay, but define standing there, and define public space, and define blocking.

Is standing in a public space for 10 minutes blocking?

What if you're standing in a line? What if you're standing, looking at a parking meter? Perhaps you're waiting for the walk sign on the road, and you're standing on the edge of the sidewalk?

Is there now a large list of exceptions? Does that mean standing in a public space where your activity is not part of the list of exceptions means you are now obstructing it?

What if you're standing in a public space, but you're a worker and are actually tasked with working on that public space? Technically, you are standing in a public space, so you are blocking it, no?

Is there some temporal element to this? If not, then are you technically blocking a public space simply by existing in that public space? If at any point you are in that public space, you are not actively moving out of that public space?

So on and so forth. This can continue forever.

The implications of something like that are pretty far-reaching, and the ambiguities are great.

[–] Ascense@lemmy.zip 1 points 28 minutes ago* (last edited 27 minutes ago)

Yes, that is what the legal system is set up to handle. Sometimes things are clear cut and there is no issue, but cases are often ambiguous, and that's when you have a trial to determine the outcome. Both parties get to present their case, and a judge makes a decision based on their best judgement of the law and common sense (at least that is the intent). Ambiguity is not a gotcha, it is very much to be expected and what the system is built around.

Of course there can be cases where the law really is too vague to be reasonably followed, but that doesn't seem to be the case here.