Activist Groups are Calling on Amazon to Cancel Ring Nation Reality Show

Over 40 completely different civil rights organizations are asking Amazon and MGM to cancel Ring Nation, an upcoming actuality tv present.

The clip present will showcase viral movies corresponding to neighbors saving neighbors, marriage proposals, navy reunions, and animals doing foolish issues.

Slapstick comedian Wanda Sykes is slated to entrance the present and the creators promise will probably be “a brand new twist on the favored clip present style.”

Nevertheless, the Cancel Ring Nation marketing campaign has revealed an open letter addressed to MGM administration warning them of the hazards of “normalizing and selling Amazon’s dangerous community of surveillance cameras.”

“On September 26, Amazon-owned MGM Studios will premiere Ring Nation. This actuality present can be like America’s Funniest House Movies — besides, as a substitute of dwelling films, it’ll air clips from individuals’s Ring surveillance cameras,” writes the marketing campaign group.

“Civil rights teams have been sounding the alarm in regards to the risks of those gadgets, together with privateness violations and racism, for years. Ring Nation is a clear try to normalize surveillance and manufacture a PR miracle for scandal-ridden Amazon. Inform MGM to cancel Ring Nation instantly.”

As reported by The Verge, the organizers behind the marketing campaign cite points corresponding to offering police departments with entry to customers’ footage and accusing the Ring community of handing police “backdoor entry to a mass surveillance community that operates unbiased of the Fourth Modification and any oversight.”

“Within the wake of the reversal of Roe, footage from a Ring digicam may very well be used to prosecute an abortion affected person who goes out of state for healthcare — both by filming the clinic, capturing them leaving an Airbnb, or proving that they weren’t dwelling for a number of days,” the letter continues.

Non-profit Combat for the Future, Media Justice, Alternate ROOTS, Athena, Heart for Race and Digital Justice, For Us Not Amazon, The Surveillance, Tech & Immigration Policing Mission on the Immigrant Protection Mission, and WITNESS are among the many signees for the open letter.

“If aired, this present jeopardizes the rights and lives of viewers and their households. Ignoring the broader societal affect of Ring and airing Ring Nation could be reckless. We name on[MGM to cancel Ring Nation,” the organizations conclude within the petition.