MGM Promotes Dangerous Surveillance Network as Family Friendly

On September 26, Amazon-owned MGM Studios will premiere Ring Nation. This reality show will be like America’s Funniest Home Videos—except it’ll air clips from people’s Ring surveillance cameras. In response, civil rights groups Fight for the Future and Media Justice have launched a campaign calling on MGM to cancel this harmful reality show. 

The campaign details many longstanding concerns with Ring devices and its private social network, Neighbors. The data amassed from millions of these devices gives Amazon unprecedented power to record everything we say and do and the places we go. The resulting surveillance and data abuses include such harms as racial discrimination, privacy violations, biometric data collection, and sharing users’ footage with other parties. 

By canceling Ring Nation, MGM would show that they support privacy, communities of color, and abortion seekers and providers.

This statement can be attributed to Evan Greer (she/they), Director of Fight for the Future:

“The Ring Nation reality TV series is anything but funny. It weaponizes the joy of our daily lives in an attempt to manufacture a PR miracle for scandal-ridden Amazon. By normalizing surveillance, it will teach our children to relinquish their privacy in exchange for a quick laugh. 

It’s really terrifying. Ring is a big-brother-like surveillance network that captures the whereabouts of millions, shares warrantless surveillance data with the police, incentivizes racists to criminalize people of color in their neighborhoods, and helps forced birthers surveil and punish abortion patients and providers. Ring cameras make our neighborhoods less safe, not more safe. If MGM airs this show, they will show a mind blowing lack of respect for our country’s foremost privacy, racial justice, reproductive rights, and civil rights groups. Ultimately, if MGM cares about families and human rights, they must cancel Ring Nation immediately.”