Photos: Someone Smashed The Hell Out Of Dozens Of LinkNYC Kiosks

The war between man and machine is heating up, and this time it has nothing to do with Mister Softee.

In the last few days, an unidentified vandal and/or Blade Runner has smashed at least 30 LinkNYC kiosks in the West Village and Chelsea, leaving a trail of destruction along 6th and 8th Avenues and across 14th Street. Several of the screens remained black as of Monday morning, while a few others continued to display their standard programming—ads for North Face, #LinkNYCfacts, ads for CitiBank, etc.—through concentric circles of shattered glass.

Observes Gothamist Editor-In-Chief John Del Signore: "This is why we can't have nice dystopian capitalist data harvesting things."

After several New Yorkers took note of the rampage online, a spokesperson for LinkNYC said the company was aware of the damage and looking into it. "LinkNYC provides a valuable public service to many of the city's most vulnerable," they wrote on Twitter. "When people vandalize Links, they impede on its ability to fund and deliver these services."

But not everyone sees it that way. Mark Thomas—a Queens resident who for years has been protesting the company by transforming the structures into ad-hoc noise machines—told Gothamist that it felt like LinkNYC was "using the poor as pawns [to say] 'please don't smash our ads.'"

"They didn't get into the business to serve the poor and vulnerable," he added. "They did it to sell ads and make lots of money."

Since launching in 2016, the hulking tablets—which now number roughly 1,700 citywide—have faced scrutiny from privacy experts and civil liberties groups over their business model's potential for surveillance overreach. The kiosks are effectively underwritten by Google through a subsidiary called Sidewalk Labs, which is headed by former deputy mayor and Hudson Yards-booster Dan Doctoroff. Privately, Doctoroff has described the company's plans to track pedestrians and serve them targeted ads, with the goal of "replicating the digital experience in physical space."

In addition to offering free gigabit-speed wi-fi and domestic calling, each kiosk includes thirty sensors and three security cameras. According to LinkNYC, footage from the cameras may be shared with law enforcement "to protect your safety, including during an emergency involving potential harm," and in instances of vandalism.

On Monday, a spokesperson for the company told Gothamist that the vandal had been spotted on one of the security cameras, and that the footage was shown to the NYPD. The police department did not have any information about LinkNYC-bashing related arrests.

According to Thomas, the prolific spree does seem "a bit scary," considering it likely means a very determined and possibly angry individual is walking around the city with a sledgehammer (or whatever tool of destruction was used).

At the same time, he noted, "I did see some beautiful things in the carnage. Somebody's really got something to say, and this is their way of saying it." We will keep an eye on our inbox for a manifesto.