![]() Want more articles like this? Follow THINK on Instagram to get updates on the week’s most important political analysis Neighbors users share “suspicious people” tips when they feel uncomfortable with people outside their homes a 2019 Motherboard analysis found that the majority of Ring’s “suspicious people” reports target people of color. Meanwhile, Ring’s companion app, Neighbors, has been accused of amplifying racial biases. And, this July, we learned that Amazon infringes on our civil liberties by handing over Ring video to the police without notification or warrants.īy 2021, Amazon had reportedly formed partnerships with around 2,000 police and fire departments, effectively giving police an easy push-button portal to request video from Ring camera owners in exchange for officers’ help marketing Amazon’s products. A recent report from nonprofit research organization Data & Society found that homeowners are increasingly using Ring and other networked doorbell cameras to surveil and punish delivery drivers, turning doorsteps into humiliating performance reviews for underpaid gig workers. ![]() And tens of millions of people post videos and images from these cameras to neighborhood watch forums like Citizen App (which literally rebranded itself from “Vigilante”) and NextDoor. ![]() are smothered in millions of similar devices, like Google Nest and Wyze. The Neighbors App, associated with Amazon Ring, boasted more than 10 million users in 2020. They present surveillance as the new normal, and fear along with it. These devices make watching one another constantly feel acceptable, expected and even addicting. They ping us with notifications, demanding our attention, and offer “infinite scroll” like Facebook and Instagram, but for neighborhood crime. But we have to face reality: Blanketing our neighborhoods in surveillance devices that promote a culture of suspicion makes all of us less safe.ĭevices like Ring and the apps associated with them are made to keep us on constant alert. They’ll blame the neighbors, the neighborhood, the guns. Surveillance proponents will claim this act of violence had nothing to do with Ring and other networked doorbell cameras. ![]()
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