No, Flock isn’t threatening people for debating surveillance

On Thursday, the Instagram account for a lecture series in Newport Beach, CA posted a photo of what appeared to be a cease and desist letter from the surveillance technology company Flock Safety. Flock has received significant backlash over its technology and work with law enforcement agencies, and this letter kicked off yet another wave of criticism against the company for allegedly trying to shut down discussions of its work.

“WE WILL NOT BE SILENCED,” the group, The Saturday Salon, wrote in the Instagram post, which has more than 3,000 likes. A separate post about the letter on Bluesky has more than 360 reposts. The text of the letter demands that the group stop hosting conversations about Flock’s surveillance technology. In a DM from The Saturday Salon’s Instagram account, Schuyler Lifschultz tells The Verge that it “found this letter taped to our front door.”

But Flock denies that it sent the letter, with chief strategy officer Rahul Sidhu citing it as an example of a mass disinformation campaign against Flock. “Flock never sent this letter, these people made it up (with a forged signature) to try to manipulate people,” Sidhu says. “We are pro-democracy. People SHOULD have discussions and lectures like this.”