Citizen pays New Yorkers $25 an hour to livestream crime scenes
Want to make $200 a day in New York City? Rush to the scene of a murder, a three-alarm fire or a traffic accident — then pull out your phone and start filming.
That’s the pitch from Citizen, a controversial neighborhood watch app that’s quietly hiring New Yorkers to livestream crime scenes and other public emergencies in an apparent effort to encourage more ordinary citizens to do the same, The Post has learned.
Citizen has raised $133 million from high-profile backers like Peter Thiel, as well as the Silicon Valley venture firms Sequoia Capital and Greycroft, by promising real-time safety alerts for users right where they live and work.
The vast majority of those alerts, including videos, appear to come from volunteers who just happened to be in the right place at the right time. And that business model — which comes amid declining coverage of local news by journalists — saves the company money.
But the app that formerly called itself “Vigilante” — and which now boasts more than 7 million users across 30 cities — is also quietly recruiting “field team members” on journalism job sites to run around the city chasing emergencies.
