The New Ring-Based Reality Show Is Making the Dystopia Real

Ring, the smart doorbell company owned by Amazon, is now taking all of their saved security footage and turning it into a funniest-home-video-style reality show. Media critics have quickly and correctly diagnosed the new initiative as “normalizing the idea and practice of people constantly surveilling one another.”

The show also spotlights an ethical gray area where it might be legally permissible to share footage of other people without their permission because they are probably on your property while being filmed. Unfortunately, the insightful concerns of a handful of privacy hawks is unlikely to be much competition for the irresistible allure of secretly watching people do idiotically funny things right outside other people's front doors.