Civil Rights Groups Are Calling On Amazon To Cancel 'Ring Nation' Reality Show (vice.com) 138
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: On Tuesday, 40 civil rights groups published an open letter calling on MGM Television executives to cancel the studio's upcoming reality show Ring Nation, which will feature former NSA employee and comedian Wanda Sykes presenting humorous surveillance footage captured from Ring doorbell cameras. The groups say the studio is "normalizing and promoting Amazon Ring's dangerous network of surveillance cameras," which, along with the Neighbors app, "violate basic privacy rights, fuel surveillance-based policing that disproportionately targets people of color and threatens abortion seekers, and enables vigilantes to surveil their neighbors and racially profile bystanders."
There's just one potential problem with the well-intentioned campaign: Amazon owns Ring, producer Big Fish Entertainment, and distributor MGM, and it also owns the Prime Video streaming service should it need somewhere to air it. It also has specific partnerships with thousands of police departments around the country should they happen to prove useful. This tower of vertical integration means that Ring Nation is a show designed from the ground up to leverage Amazon's vast monopoly to push its own product on Americans, and it also means that it will probably (but not definitely) be impossible to kill. There's very little chance that MGM executives will push back on the project when it's probably exactly the type of thing Amazon imagined being able to do when it spent $8.5 billion on a merger with MGM this year. "Ring Nation is not a comedy but rather a propaganda strategy to normalize and further digitize racial profiling in our communities. Truthfully the cognitive dissonance about the dangers of these tools is a real concern. It's striking to see a host who has been such a vocal supporter of racial justice protesters defend the very tech that was used to surveil activists during the uprisings in 2020," said Myaisha Hayes, campaign strategy director at Cancel Ring Nation co-organizer Media Justice, in a statement.
"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," Evan Greer, director of co-organizer Fight for the Future, said in a statement. "By normalizing surveillance, it will teach our children to relinquish their privacy in exchange for a quick laugh. In the coming weeks, Fight for the Future, Media Justice, and our org partners will be mobilizing our supporters and forming a loud and fearless coalition of civil rights groups to cancel Ring Nation," Greer said.
The show is set to launch on Sept. 26, though it hasn't been announced which networks will carry it.
There's just one potential problem with the well-intentioned campaign: Amazon owns Ring, producer Big Fish Entertainment, and distributor MGM, and it also owns the Prime Video streaming service should it need somewhere to air it. It also has specific partnerships with thousands of police departments around the country should they happen to prove useful. This tower of vertical integration means that Ring Nation is a show designed from the ground up to leverage Amazon's vast monopoly to push its own product on Americans, and it also means that it will probably (but not definitely) be impossible to kill. There's very little chance that MGM executives will push back on the project when it's probably exactly the type of thing Amazon imagined being able to do when it spent $8.5 billion on a merger with MGM this year. "Ring Nation is not a comedy but rather a propaganda strategy to normalize and further digitize racial profiling in our communities. Truthfully the cognitive dissonance about the dangers of these tools is a real concern. It's striking to see a host who has been such a vocal supporter of racial justice protesters defend the very tech that was used to surveil activists during the uprisings in 2020," said Myaisha Hayes, campaign strategy director at Cancel Ring Nation co-organizer Media Justice, in a statement.
"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," Evan Greer, director of co-organizer Fight for the Future, said in a statement. "By normalizing surveillance, it will teach our children to relinquish their privacy in exchange for a quick laugh. In the coming weeks, Fight for the Future, Media Justice, and our org partners will be mobilizing our supporters and forming a loud and fearless coalition of civil rights groups to cancel Ring Nation," Greer said.
The show is set to launch on Sept. 26, though it hasn't been announced which networks will carry it.
OMG Amazon!!!!!!! (Score:2)
They own everything!!!
I am SOOOO helpless!!!!!
My hair is on fire!!!!!
Yes, Ring Nation is a terrible idea.
So is ALL reality TV
See:
COPS
Dog The Bounty Hunter
Americas Most Wanted
and just for some non-reality types:
CHIPS
Adam-12
Dragnet
I live in Oakland.
Today 9/20/22
2 shot outside city hall 1 dead.
ALL cops are bad?
And I am NOT a cop fan!
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Also fewer exclamation marks.
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Me too, but I was tired
Re:OMG Amazon!!!!!!! (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem is that police are needed in a society as large as ours with easy transportation.
OTOH, the current police have too many perverse incentives, and virtually no restraints. Limited immunity is an idea that does have justifications, but the implementation was so bad that it should be removed entirely. Then a much more limited form could be created.
Unfortunately, no complex idea can survive being converted into sound bytes, so you can't get a social movement going that will aim to fix the existing problems. But if the folks who CAN fix the problem WON'T fix it, the discontent and lack of trust will continue to grow. Some people seem to want this.
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Oooo!!!! Oooooo!!!!
Can I mod this up?
Yeah, really worthwhile stuff is complicated
In the light (Score:4, Insightful)
>"The groups say the studio is "normalizing and promoting Amazon Ring's dangerous network of surveillance cameras,"
Or it is bringing to light how much of this data is being shared so the public will know? Supposedly the people who have these yucky devices are informed and consent to this sharing.
No way will I ever install some surveillance device that some outside entity has access to on my house.
Re:In the light (Score:5, Interesting)
Or it is bringing to light how much of this data is being shared so the public will know? Supposedly the people who have these yucky devices are informed and consent to this sharing.
Based on past observations of my fellow American Idiots, I expect if this show is a success a non-trivial number of people will rush to install Ring Doorbells in odd (and privacy-invading) places, hoping their footage will be unique and/or embarrassing enough to be featured on the show.
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Mod parent "such a deep insight" that it should be buried in a deeeep hole. The whole thing is just a marketing ploy.
However the primary abuse that is paying for the scam is hidden in the rankings of the product search results on Amazon. The truth that would reveal the scam? The profit margin for Amazon linked to each product in the list of results.
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There *is* justification for surveillance cameras on your door that cover your porch. Perhaps also your yard. Beyond that...no.
I don't have home automation either, and don't want it. But there have been times when, if a really limited surveillance camera was available, I'd have installed it in an instant. But I sure wouldn't have wanted the data to be transmitted over the internet, much less be published publicly. Not without my editorial approval of each frame. And I wouldn't have wanted it to includ
How is a video doorbell racist? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, why is it every time some activist group wants to cancel something they always bring up racism? How exactly is having a video doorbell promoting racial profiling or other racism? Last I knew, there's not an option to only record black people doing stupid things. The entire stigma of 'racism' has been lost due to the very broad overuse of claims.
This really seems like little more than a show similar to America's Funniest Home Videos. It's tie-in to Ring is little more than promotional. The substance is the same. I'd expect to see things like delivery people dancing, animals doing stupid things and staged stunts. If a porch thief is running off with a 60" tv and trying to stuff it in a small car, regardless of what color they are, they deserve to be laughed at.
Re:How is a video doorbell racist? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, why is it every time some activist group wants to cancel something they always bring up racism?
They don't exactly say racist but "disproportionately targets people of color".
But so what? Penalties for homicide "disproportionately targets people of color". Do they want murder decriminalised?
I guess it is about control of information.
I think they honestly believe that high crime rates among some black people are solely the result of past slavery and ongoing racism. That if you pretend it is not there, and break the cycle, it will go away. At the same time, they fear *other* people seeing the data will conclude that blacks are inherently violent and dishonest.
But if you bother to look beyond the US (which isn't really so special) at the facts around the world, you'll clearly see by simple counter-examples that neither of these extremes are true. Other countries without a history comparable to the US have comparable problems, and some do not.
If you look at sub-Saharan Africa itself, until recently most people lived in small communities, with extended families, and low crime rates. Much of rural Africa remains very safe today. But the new big cities are a very different matter! Does this all sound familiar? We have seen the same patterns, albeit weaker, in white America, and indeed all over the world. The traditional social structures that held crime in check, family and local community, have been diminished, and we vary in how successfully we have replaced them.
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Karens worry about black people existing in their neighbourhood, buy surveillance equipment and submit clips to this show, Facebook etc. The result is that black people are disproportionately represented, creating a feedback loop that creates more Karens and more camera footage.
Yes, black people do crimes sometimes. Maybe even more crimes, if you look at the stats, but that is begging the question. You assume the stats are fair and unbiased, which they are not. It's up to cops where the resources go, who th
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When they do parodies of racists saying "actually calling someone racist is racist", what goes through your mind?
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It was just a few years ago that a top scientist said that black people are genetically less intelligent.
I'm not sure if you are trying to get a reaction. We know there are large racial IQ differences, with European Jews scoring very high for example.
It is very hard to separate nature from nurture, but we know that both genetics and environment (e.g. nutrition in womb and infancy) contribute to population differences. If you start to ignore science when it contradicts your pre-judged opinions, you are in company with anti-vaxers, flat-earthers and climate change denialists. So please stop attacking scientists
Re:How is a video doorbell racist? (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no evidence that shows any race is inherently more intelligent than another with anything even approaching confidence.
On the other hand, we see that in societies were two races are truly equal, there is no measurable difference. Such societies are extremely rare due to historic and current factors, so they tend to be small populations of wealthy people where their money gives them access to things like elite schooling, stable family life, good nutrition etc.
This idea has a long history, and is called "scientific racism". Dubious science has been used for centuries to justify racism. A notorious modern example is the book "The Bell Curve", which presents such compelling evidence as IQ scores from apartheid era South Africa showing white people are more intelligent than black folk. The evidence you allude to, but don't cite, is certainly of the same calibre.
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I have to say, the most remarkable thing to me about Hernstein & Murray is that their infamous book SUMMARIZED existing reputable scientific data of the era.
If the subsequent shitstorm personally attacking them and the book doesn't illustrate the shoot the messenger mentality of the outrage addicts, I don't know what does.
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If you actually look at the data, the conclusion of race correlated IQ is wrong.
If you aren't willing to look at the data, why not?
I wondered that too (Score:4, Insightful)
Think of it like a digital Karen. You see a black guy walking in your neighborhood minding his own business. You call the cops. Cops come, escalate the situation and he gets shot.
Meanwhile Amazon is actively encouraging you to be in a constant state of fear because you'll accept 24/7 surveillance by them if you are.
Re:I wondered that too (Score:5, Insightful)
Mod parent up, but sad. (However what I most wish the EFF and ACLU would work on would be ways for me to vote against the bastards who used the computers to gerrymander my vote into oblivion.)
Re:I wondered that too (Score:5, Insightful)
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There's a whole bunch of elements on this forum who really don't like American racism being pointed out to them. And for some reason they always seem to have mod points.
I don't think they always have mod points... I just think when they get them, they go looking for ways to apply them in support of a specific political agenda.
It's the sort of thing that the meta-moderation system is supposed to address - but while reminders to meta-moderate used to appear frequently, I haven't seen a single one in many years.
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I still see the meta-moderation requests sometimes, but I just ignore them. I did try to do some meta-moderation from time to time, but it seemed too pointless and I stopped bothering. Never figured out what it was supposed to accomplish or how it was supposed to work.
However I think there must be some kind of "escalation" notification system for abusive moderation. Seems like the negative mods have usually been cancelled even before I look at the comments (as linked in the notifications of mods received).
I
Re:I wondered that too (Score:4, Interesting)
Sock puppet accounts created to farm mod points.
In Germany they teach kids about their past, including Nazism and the holocaust. They take them on tours of the concentration camps and gas chambers. No shying away from it. Every country should be like that, confront its past head on, no glossing over it.
Meanwhile in Texas the textbooks say that actually slaves were treated quite well and pretty content until the northern states radicalized them to think freedom was in the best interests. And look at them now, poverty stricken criminals...
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I don't think that they are allowed to do that kind of thing. Non-profit organizations a severely limited in what kinds of political speech they can use. There have been techniques developed to demonstrate that unfair gerrymandering has happened, and which can draw ungerrymanded voting maps that can be mathematically proven to be ungerrymanded. But the folks who draw up the maps don't want to use them, and no legal case has yet forced them to do so.
The two groups that can work on the case you propose are
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I think there should be some political exposure at some level. As it stands now, they are engaging in political shenanigans with absolutely NO accountability to the voters.
However, I still favor more extreme solutions to gerrymandering. My original solution approach was guest voting, but I've become much more radical since then...
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You know though? It's supposed to be a *doorbell* camera, not a generic camera to monitor the entire area in front of your property.
I have one of the video doorbells from a competitor, Eufy. Love it because it doesn't need some paid cloud subscription to work. Saves footage locally onto SD card storage and allows other local storage options too, with ability to send push notifications to my phone when it detects motion or the bell is rung. The thing is though? It doesn't do anything if someone walks down t
Re: How is a video doorbell racist? (Score:5, Insightful)
surveillance-based policing that disproportionately targets people of color
You're referring to this part of the summary in your weird little anti-anti-racist screed that isn't fooling anyone?
They mean the kind where Karen watches the street all day and stirs up the neighbors on nextdoor when someone "suspicious" walks/jogs/drives by. Don't be a fucking dumbass.
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You can't really tell just want they mean, you have to figure out. And when you try to figure it out, the answer you get will depend on your relevant prior beliefs.
Your interpretation is a perfectly reasonable interpretation, but it's not the only reasonable interpretation.
Re:How is a video doorbell racist? (Score:4, Insightful)
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While your comment is true, what it demonstrates is not that racism is being overused as a justifies, but rather that it permeates society to such an extent the people often don't even notice it.
OTOH, a better question would be not "Is this racist?" but rather "Was this approach chosen because of racism?". Sometimes the answers would be different, and sometimes not.
Strange statement... (Score:2)
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Damn (Score:2)
I miss the simpler times when people had to go up against lions, and fight each other to the death in the arena. No cameras, no technology.
Kill It (Score:2)
"This tower of vertical integration means that Ring Nation is a show designed from the ground up to leverage Amazon's vast monopoly to push its own product on Americans, and it also means that it will probably (but not definitely) be impossible to kill."
Well, you can not watch it. That's usually a surefire way to kill a TV show.
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Relativity (Score:2)
Sure, but one is quite a lot easier than another. Not watching something really takes zero effort.
AFNCSV (Score:4, Insightful)
I guess "Ring Nation" rolls off the tongue better than "America's Funniest Non-Consensual Surveillance Videos"
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tbh I think your title is better.
I'll roll my own (Score:2)
I just need to figure out which wifi camera can be properly secured and does not include any phone-home capability. Then I can stream the camera to my own server where it will be untouched by snooping corporations.
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Eufy is a Chinese company, so can't be trusted.
What are they saying? (Score:2)
It's racist because it records thieves, and thieves are minorities?
Wanda Sykes... NSA? (Score:2)
> will feature former NSA employee and comedian Wanda Sykes
Wait, what?
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From https://web.archive.org/web/20... [archive.org] :
"When you're in the Maryland-D.C. area, you end up working for the government,â she says. Her father was an Army colonel who worked at the Pentagon, and her mother was a banker. So, after college (Sykes studied marketing at Hampton University, a historically black college in Virginia), she did just that: She spent five years as a contracting specialist for the National Security Agency, an intelligence branch of the Defense Department. The young woman with the big
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Well, that quote doesn't exactly say she quit her job. Perhaps she asked for a better assignment.
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Read the TOS (Score:2)
Amazon ultimately owns the data and derived information from that data. If you don't like it, there are alternatives.
Security cameras are a civil rights violation? (Score:2)
I see a settlement emerging: Amazon will have to hire some Asians to commit crimes in view of Ring cameras, so that any cultural imbalance in rates of crime shall be evened out.
All those pictures (Score:2)
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Even a brief look at the history of persecution nicely proves you wrong. Are you one of the assholes that actually want persecution?
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If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.
--Cardinal Richelieu
What do you think old Richy could have done with a few seconds of video footage?
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If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.
--Cardinal Richelieu
What do you think old Richy could have done with a few seconds of video footage?
Seconds? That master of the game could have done it with a single still image!
And this is exactly it and that is why privacy and its enforcement is so important.
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And thus if you're doing nothing wrong then you shouldn't demand that police have a warrant before searching your person, car, house... This logic falls too flatly in line with the idea that law enforcement can never have too much power to catch criminals, which flies in the face of the bill of rights (in US at least). Remember, this is merely Amazon putting up cameras, or their customers, but that law enforcement is given access to the cameras (presumably even without opt-in from the homeowners). Oh, bu
Balanced Presentation (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Warning surveillance state (Score:2)
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Really? You think you'd be the first one that ends up in a "funny" meme video who just decided to go out into his yard at the wrong moment, step on a snail with your bare and do a weird ass reaction that's then turned into an internet sensation, to be ridiculed by all of your friends and coworkers, pretty much telling your boss that this goofball is probably not the one who should get promoted or sent to an important meeting with a customer because he's "that snail dance guy"?
Yeah, you have nothing to worry
Re:Wrong (Score:4, Interesting)
Correction: If you're not doing anything then you've got nothing to worry about from ring cameras.
Correction: If you do not exist, then you have got nothing to worry about from ring cameras.
Re:Wrong [on SO many levels] (Score:2)
Mod FP up and parent "funny not funny".
Horrifying show. Just when you thought "reality television" couldn't become any more harmful. Doesn't make me feel any better to see the proof of how right I was about Amazon after my second and final purchase from Amazon more than 20 years ago.
One observation, however. The show doesn't have to be racist. That depends on the editing. But the pick of presenter makes me believe they wanted "coverage" for the racism to come. "What the customer wants" might be cited as the
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I don't know whether you're correct or not. You *MAY* be. And that still wouldn't excuse fomenting racism.
OTOH, there's a fair amount of evidence that the proportion of black people who go to jail during their lifetimes is due to a combination of racism and "poor people can't afford decent lawyers". Perhaps there is still more crime. That wouldn't be hard to believe, as crime is always higher (as a percentage, and judged only by convictions) among those who are without power in a society.
Rings of Power (Score:2)
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You're being filmed in your home without consent! (Score:5, Insightful)
While I am not a fan of the contributions Ring makes to our surveillance society, I am less of a fan for censorship.
The problem is we're all on Ring cameras without our consent. I live in an urban area, so the doorbell across the street is about 50 feet away. If my neighbor gets a ring doorbell, she can track when I'm awake or asleep when I leave the house, who visits me, etc. Even with blinds closed, you can figure out when the light is on, thus if I'm home or away. It's also very difficult to know if they're using a camera. The old CCTV cameras were conspicuous. A ring doorbell is nearly impossible to detect until you're much much closer than it's range of filming.
My local nextdoor.com feed is filled with people uploading Ring doorbell videos and photos of residents who don't clean up after their dog, for example, or one asshole uploaded pictures, to a public website, of children she didn't know playing outside without masks in the summer of 2020 when people were in peak COVID panic. Why? because she wanted to shame them. The community shamed her quickly, but still...she's a shitty broken excuse for a human being and Amazon is making it super easy for even a broken, ignorant, dysfunctional recluse like her to cause some real harm.
Yes, it's technically legal to film me in my front yard or film inside open windows in my house, but it's fucking creepy and inappropriate, especially to share it with a television show. And yes, we've had surveillance cameras for a long time, but it's never been this cheap or easy. Going from surveillance systems 10 years ago to modern ones with automatic police sharing and cloud uploading like the ring is like going from muskets to Uzis in both ease of use and potential for harm when in the hands of an idiotic or malicious person.
I dislike Rings being used for the intended purpose, but I especially hate that they're also being used for entertainment. Those are there to stop package thieves, not amuse you or spy on your neighbors.
Re:You're being filmed in your home without consen (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:You're being filmed in [public] without consent (Score:4, Interesting)
Best entry point for my new thought on the topic? But starting with a nod to the thread, it depends on the jurisdiction. In some places it may be legal to take any pictures in a public place without the consent of people who happen to appear in those pictures, but I can definitely report that there are places where the answer is "Not so much." These days there are so many of those notices about security cameras in operation that most people can't even notice the notices.
But my new thought on the topic is that this project is probably even worse than I thought, and my first thought was that it was terrible. What if this is kind of a secondary profit feeding off of an AI training program? On one side they are looking for funny stuff for the surreality show, but on the other side they are looking for ANYTHING that is unusual. They started with a very simple AI that could detect change, then they taught it to recognize humans. Next stage involved expediting the detection of potentially funny stuff, but on the other side of that same coin they are routing those images to human experts to pick out the patterns of stuff that isn't funny, but suspicious. Who decides what is suspicious?
Right now I've become one of the most suspicious people of all. At least as Jeff Bezos sees things, what sort of monster am I who NEVER shops at Amazon?
My feeble retaliation: Now I'm suspicious of "my" Roomba!
So Jeff has the door cameras on the outside and the Roomba cameras on the inside. What could possibly go wrong?
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Why? because she wanted to shame them.
GOOD. They DESERVED to be shamed.
The community shamed her quickly, but still...she's a shitty broken excuse for a human being and ...
I disagree, and I would further submit that they're something wrong with your mind, if you think that shaming maskless people during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic is a bad thing.
vs filming minors without consent & uploading? (Score:5, Insightful)
I disagree, and I would further submit that they're something wrong with your mind, if you think that shaming maskless people during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic is a bad thing.
I would say that filming minors without their consent and posting videos without their consent is pretty shameful. It's an old white woman getting super upset about preteen black and Latino children from disadvantaged homes playing basketball outside.
It's not a clear cut issue. Those kids were ignoring advice, but it's easy to socially distance when you're rich. When you live with 4 brothers and sisters in a 1000sqft apartment with stressed-out parents, I can see being eager to get outside.
Just like it's technically not illegal to film me inside my own house through an open window, most would agree it's a shitty thing to do, especially if you used the footage against the person. Similarly, it's not technically racist for a comfortable, bored white woman to shame impoverished children of color for not following strict CDC guidelines. and to cross the line by uploading photos of them to a public social media site without knowing them or having any form of consent from them or a guardian, but...it's definitely "icky" It's definitely "punching down." It lacks empathy, decency, and even common-sense. She's a miserable person who is not very tech saavy, but Amazon made it super easy for her to be mega-Karen to some disadvantaged teenagers.
I don't think filming and uploading to social media photos or videos of minors without consent is OK and in this case, they weren't even breaking the law...just not following what you and her thought was good advice.
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In Europe you have some redress against this sort of thing. Data protection rules require that any data collected be justified, or opt-in.
If someone sets up a camera they need to ensure that it either doesn't capture any public areas or neighbouring properties, or get opt-in permission to do so from the people who will be recorded by it.
Doorbell cameras can work within these limitations, IF they only record video when someone presses the bell or they are configured to detect movement only on the owner's pro
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In my state, at least, it is not legal to film inside a house without the homeowner's permission, through open windows or not.
Re:You could you know, just not watch it (Score:5, Informative)
This is not censorship. Maybe look that term up before throwing it around casually? They are asking MGM to not do this and point out to everybody what it would mean. "Censorship" would mean to stop them from doing it. What they are trying to do is get MGM to stop themselves. Fundamentally different.
Here is a starting point for censorship: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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From your own link:
Self-censorship is the act of censoring or classifying one's own discourse. This is done out of fear of, or deference to, the sensibilities or preferences (actual or perceived) of others and without overt pressure from any specific party or institution of authority.
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And have you understood what that sentence means?
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And have you understood what that sentence means?
Yes, it means that your claim:
"Censorship" would mean to stop them from doing it. What they are trying to do is get MGM to stop themselves.
Is incorrect, as self-censorship is clearly still considered censorship and it would be exactly what would happen if MGM would decide to cancel the show due to the open letter.
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I see. So you are actually functionally illiterate. Because that is not what it means. Please go away, the adults are having a discussion here.
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The only thing to see here is your total lack of valid counter-arguments and attempt to resort to insults and insinuations instead of valid arguments to support your position.
If you want to have a discussion as an adult learn how to properly argue your point instead of resorting to this childish behaviour.
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There cannot be a rational discussion with people that are both excessively arrogant and cannot even understand simple text. They just do not qualify. All that is needed to understand why this is not self-censorship is in that wikipedia page. It is not hard to read or understand. It is not unclear.
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Sure it can: actually providing rational arguments is an excellent way to address arrogant/ignorant people.
Your problem is not whether I qualify or not: your problem is that you have no arguments.
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This is not censorship. Maybe look that term up before throwing it around casually? They are asking MGM to not do this and point out to everybody what it would mean. "Censorship" would mean to stop them from doing it. What they are trying to do is get MGM to stop themselves. Fundamentally different.
Here is a starting point for censorship: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
This.
When it comes to broadcasting, explicit consent is required, it can't be implied or assumed.
To say otherwise means I can set up a web camera pointing into your front rooms... or back rooms over your fence and there's nothing you could do about it.
Of course that is pretty much illegal, you can sue me, you could even smash my camera and likely get away with it (even in the UK that would largely be considered under the Self Defence provisions, even otherwise you'll likely end up with a caution).
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There is an explanation why they are _asking_ this to be cancelled. I guess you missed that detail somehow. This is _not_ censorship.
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And parents are _asking_ school boards to fire teachers who teach Marxism to toddlers, in the forms of Critical Race Theory and anti-gender politics evolved from the Marxism of the Foucault School of Philosophy.
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In case it's not clear, I'm mocking the use of the word "asking". I realized that it might not be clear what I'm mocking.
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And do you see any alternative? Because the only ones I see is doing this non-public (thereby ending up in the trash with exceptionally high probability) or saying nothing at all. Hence this is the lowest, most friendly effective level of saying something that seems to be available. If that then gets called "censorship", the pressure and unfair tactics seem to be on the sides calling it that.
Re: You could you know, just not watch it (Score:2)
I won't wade into the CRT debate, but asking someone to censor themselves is different than censoring. If they were one and the same, then anytime you ever asked anyone to stop doing something, you be censoring them. The people requesting censoring are doing so precisely because they have no ability to do so themselves. If they have no ability to censor, then they logically can't be the ones implementing it.
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Indeed. Well, the ones asking could try via the courts or actually trying for a shit-storm or go the political route. They are not, they ask and they give a good reason. Deciding to not do something can but does not need to be self-censorship (which can be a form of censorship: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]).
Self-censorship is however a problem on the side of those asked, not those doing the asking. It can be due to virtue-signalling, fear, greed and other things that are not good. In the case at hand,
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Censorship is when a government body decides that certain information is not suitable for public consumption.
Did the feds get involved and I didn't notice it?
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Censorship is when a government body decides that certain information is not suitable for public consumption.
Did the feds get involved and I didn't notice it?
Censorship isn't exclusive to government bodies. Censorship is when any entity with power or control, uses that power or control to limit or alter information disclosed by either the same or a different entity. There are many definitions, but Wikipedia says [wikipedia.org]:
Censorship can be conducted by governments, private institutions and other controlling bodies. [...] Governments and private organizations may engage in censorship. Other groups or institutions may propose and petition for censorship.
In this case, 40 civil rights groups (which hold political power) are requesting that MGM (which holds the power to censor the content it broadcasts) not broadcast (aka censor) the Ring Nation show (which MGM originally planned to broadcast). MGM may or
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No, maybe it doesn't. But your Roomba vacuum cleaner does! If not photos, all sorts of info about your home. Look into it.
And guess who just bought Roomba...
Who thought it was acceptable to allow Amazon to buy MGM? This is just getting out of control...
Re:Does take pictures of the inside of your house? (Score:5, Insightful)
No. I didn't think so. It takes pictures of OUTSIDE, in public. There is no expectation of privacy in public. Whether you approve of it or not, you can be surveilled in public without your consent and without a warrant. To claim your "civil rights" are violated because Ring takes your picture in public is just silly.
There is _some_ expectation of privacy in public to the extent that sure, I expect to go outsid of my home and maybe see the mailman, or a guy walking a dog or the kids playing in the street. I would NOT expect for a video to be recorded of me and broadcast to millions of people. There has got to be some sane compromise.
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There is _some_ expectation of privacy in public
Wait, what? Public and private are opposites, you can't have it both ways.
This is certainly true legally. Public sidewalks have long been legally established as public places, where one does not have a reasonable expectation of privacy.
https://lawshelf.com/shortvide... [lawshelf.com]
People who do stupid stuff might _wish_ for some magical screen of privacy, but that doesn't make it so.
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That's not privacy, that's a right to be forgotten: That is, a freedom from being stalked and judged by a loud-mouthed minority. But how many people complain about gossip columns? The USA, doesn't forget your credit rating, criminal history, or renting history. Plus, a lack of privacy means anyone can access that past.
Re:Does take pictures of the inside of your house? (Score:5, Insightful)
No. I didn't think so. It takes pictures of OUTSIDE, in public. There is no expectation of privacy in public.
Wiretapping is a felony. Simply recording a conversation in public without explicit consent of one or more parties is against the law.
Whether you approve of it or not, you can be surveilled in public without your consent and without a warrant. To claim your "civil rights" are violated because Ring takes your picture in public is just silly.
People often disagree on what should or should not be protected. It doesn't make their opinion silly.
I personally think wiretapping laws go too far while totally free reign on video is too permissive. Both photons and phonons convey information, what makes one worthy of protection and the other not?
Why should people communicating via ASL not be protected while those communicating the same information vocally be protected?
This is all quite "silly" in my view. I can't help but assume had cameras been ubiquitous when wiretapping legislation went on the books it would have been included and current issues are very much an artifact of law not quite catching up with technology than anything else.
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Talk for your own country, buddy. In mine, my surveillance camera MUST NOT take any pictures of public spaces. Ever. I can film my own property 24/7, with infrared and night vision if I so please, but filming anything public with a fixed surveillance camera is out of the question.
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(is my sarcastic tone coming across?)
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Well, "poor" and "subjected to diseases" are objectively measurable, and the implication is correct, though the reasons assigned depend on the model that you use.
When you say "crime" it's not clear what you mean, but I'm tempted to partially quote "The law forbids both the rich and the poor man sleeping under the bridge.".
WRT "uneducated", if you mean "years of schooling" it's objectively measurable and the implication is correct.
"Helpless" is context dependent, and just who is relatively more helpless depe
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Make it illegal to share clips of videos unless it is clearly in the interest of solving a violent felony rather than humiliation. Humiliating someone should be illegal.