MediaJustice

Making its television premiere tonight, “Ring Nation” is debuting amid calls from advocacy groups to cancel the show. MGM (now owned by Amazon) is leveraging footage from Ring security cameras (also owned by Amazon) to create a show along the lines of “America’s Funniest Home Videos,” with Wanda Sykes as host. The show is a thinly veiled advertisement within an advertisement, but beyond that, groups like MediaJustice are concerned that the show is “normalizing and promoting Amazon Ring’s dangerous network of surveillance cameras.”

In an open letter to MGM, MediaJustice wrote, “‘Ring Nation’ attempts to put a happy face on a dangerous product. Not only will MGM’s ‘Ring Nation’ further normalize harmful neighborhood surveillance, it will deepen the pockets of a corporation that profits from the criminalization of communities of color and surveilling the whereabouts and actions of millions.” Forty other human rights organizations signed the letter.

Read the full letter in TechCrunch.

News

See All