Not much to see here. Crowd sourced, vibe coded app. Not sure what "verified" means because the only verification they did was require a checkbox that "I confirm this is a genuine experience"
Fair catch, clustering does get flagged automatically, but that just means "multiple people reported it," not "confirmed true." Same issue: "verified" oversells it either way.
Fair on "verified" - it's really "manually reviewed" (duplicate/outlier checks), not independently verified. Should probably fix that word on the site.
I could see no bribes in my city. Where is this data sourced from? Also its just showing city and department name. Can't find name or photo of person who took the bribe.
If I were a corrupt official in one of the departments I would simply use a vpn and submit a bunch of data for my specific specialty all across the country and then slightly fewer in my own department to drive demand and set market expectations
Counterpoint: if they have that much tech expertise and competency managing things they would have left and make more money doing more productive things :)
A lot of people in western countries are unaware of how bad corruption is in the developing world.
It's not uncommon for something like 80% of government officials of all types to be corrupt, compared to under 5-10% in the west.
Go to one of these countries and you'll see it for yourself first hand if you ever deal with the government in any capacity.
You may start to see the same thing in the west with idelologues such as Trump, who care more about loyalty and power than corruption. He has already removed a lot of checks and balances in the system.
can someone guide me to the developer of this website? i am zaheen from Indian express and i would like to talk to the maker of this app. here's my contact info zaheenlakhnavi@gmail.com
It's because Western governments do a much better job of legitimizing their corruption or just doing it "transparently" (which makes it okay, you see?).
Best example is registered lobbying. If you have the money, you absolutely can brazenly bribe politicians and not only is it okay, in the United States its been backed by the highest courts as a form of "expression".
Bribing is okay in the West because its not bribing, its legitimized entirely with weasel words like "lobbying" or "fundraising". As long as you're "transparent" about it then its fine.
Relative poverty and enforcement: if a cop accepts a bribe they can lose their job. It’s not worth accepting £20 (or even £2000) bribe and forfeit larger future earnings.
So when bribes do happen it’s for much greater amounts (or nebulous, hard-to-trace things like favours), which rules out bribes for minor infractions.
I'm a lawyer.
I deal with government officials on behalf of clients.
I will give a different context of it.
Many people "do actually" commit tax fraud. It's just real.
Then you have people who don't do "compliance" and government officials see this as potential cash cow.
Then you have third category of "clients". These people just are unlucky. The officer "wants" to get a certain sum of money as bribes so they are indiscriminate in who they target. Any fully compliant client "has to" pay to avoid "further complications" and they quietly pay because they don't want hassles.
This website was built by end users who see "oh why do I have to pay a bribe" when most likely they have committed tax fraud and just want to be quiet about it.
Example.
People calling fake deductions in their income tax returns or giving fake donations and claiming deductions. People often say "oh I didn't know" but it'd actually tax fraud so why not face full music of the law if you do it?
Not much to see here. Crowd sourced, vibe coded app. Not sure what "verified" means because the only verification they did was require a checkbox that "I confirm this is a genuine experience"
> Others confirm the pattern When reports cluster around one office or officer, the algorithm flags a verified pattern automatically
It just requires enough others to say the same thing for it to be verified.
Fair catch, clustering does get flagged automatically, but that just means "multiple people reported it," not "confirmed true." Same issue: "verified" oversells it either way.
Do you genuinely think unaffected parties are poisoning the well here? Most likely those asked to pay are reporting.
Fair on "verified" - it's really "manually reviewed" (duplicate/outlier checks), not independently verified. Should probably fix that word on the site.
> Not sure what "verified" means
If you want your post verified, that'll cost you $100
Ha, fair dig. For the record, it's optional and has nothing to do with what gets published, but I get why the timing makes it look that way.
I could see no bribes in my city. Where is this data sourced from? Also its just showing city and department name. Can't find name or photo of person who took the bribe.
If I were a corrupt official in one of the departments I would simply use a vpn and submit a bunch of data for my specific specialty all across the country and then slightly fewer in my own department to drive demand and set market expectations
Counterpoint: if they have that much tech expertise and competency managing things they would have left and make more money doing more productive things :)
Counter to that, they could bribe someone else to do it for them.
Agreed.
In India*
My bad.
I was literally thinking to code this other day. Good work.
Could providing a leaderboard drive competition in looking for the highest amount of bribes?
Fair point, hadn't considered that. A leaderboard risks rewarding exaggeration. Would think about this.
You won...an investigation!
Bangalore and Bengaluru appear as different options. You need to standardize the input if you're presenting statistics by city.
Love the concept, please spend sometime with UI, gives a sense that the reported numbers are not serious.
How did you articulate this data? How real is this ?
A lot of people in western countries are unaware of how bad corruption is in the developing world.
It's not uncommon for something like 80% of government officials of all types to be corrupt, compared to under 5-10% in the west.
Go to one of these countries and you'll see it for yourself first hand if you ever deal with the government in any capacity.
You may start to see the same thing in the west with idelologues such as Trump, who care more about loyalty and power than corruption. He has already removed a lot of checks and balances in the system.
What the west calls corruption the east calls tradition.
the west just formalizes the expedited processing fee vis “due process” or a “deferred prosecution agreement”
Indeed, don't forget book deals, TV specials, speakers fees, offers of deferred employment in the company being regulated, and so on.
can someone guide me to the developer of this website? i am zaheen from Indian express and i would like to talk to the maker of this app. here's my contact info zaheenlakhnavi@gmail.com
makes me wonder, why aren't the western government as corrupt?
what's the whole mechanism keeping things functioning?
It's because Western governments do a much better job of legitimizing their corruption or just doing it "transparently" (which makes it okay, you see?).
Best example is registered lobbying. If you have the money, you absolutely can brazenly bribe politicians and not only is it okay, in the United States its been backed by the highest courts as a form of "expression".
Bribing is okay in the West because its not bribing, its legitimized entirely with weasel words like "lobbying" or "fundraising". As long as you're "transparent" about it then its fine.
Relative poverty and enforcement: if a cop accepts a bribe they can lose their job. It’s not worth accepting £20 (or even £2000) bribe and forfeit larger future earnings.
So when bribes do happen it’s for much greater amounts (or nebulous, hard-to-trace things like favours), which rules out bribes for minor infractions.
My question is, how do you "prove" this.
We have cases in India where someone was held to not having been commited a crime 30 years after being first caught taking few bucks.
They lost their life, earnings, social status and in the end a judge says "you are free to go" but there is no compensation. https://www.news18.com/india/declared-innocent-after-30-year...
Or this case
https://indian.community/news/delhi-high-court-upholds-convi...
But it doesn't mean corruption isn't caught or people don't care. They do, it's just people get away with a lot of things
Need San Francisco version.
surprisingly accurate. I've seen the average between median and max being the sweet spot (based on 4 datapoints)
Ha, small sample but I'll take it. Curious what departments those 4 were from, if you remember.
I'm a lawyer. I deal with government officials on behalf of clients.
I will give a different context of it.
Many people "do actually" commit tax fraud. It's just real.
Then you have people who don't do "compliance" and government officials see this as potential cash cow.
Then you have third category of "clients". These people just are unlucky. The officer "wants" to get a certain sum of money as bribes so they are indiscriminate in who they target. Any fully compliant client "has to" pay to avoid "further complications" and they quietly pay because they don't want hassles.
This website was built by end users who see "oh why do I have to pay a bribe" when most likely they have committed tax fraud and just want to be quiet about it.
Example.
People calling fake deductions in their income tax returns or giving fake donations and claiming deductions. People often say "oh I didn't know" but it'd actually tax fraud so why not face full music of the law if you do it?
Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49050566
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48969051