Ring Is Back and Scarier Than Ever

Summary

The 404 Media Podcast

Episode: Ring Is Back and Scarier Than Ever

Date: February 11, 2026
Hosts: Joseph, Sam Cole, Emanuel Mayberg, Jason Kebler

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Episode Overview

This week, the 404 Media team dives into their recent projects and ongoing investigations—most notably, the wild journey of buying a Super Bowl TV ad in one of America’s smallest media markets. The latter part of the episode shifts focus to a far more serious trend: the return and escalation of Amazon’s Ring as a key player in consumer surveillance, highlighted by its controversial Super Bowl ad. The hosts dissect the implications of Ring’s new AI-driven features and what they mean for privacy, civil liberties, and the future of so-called “luxury surveillance.”

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. 404 Media Buys a Super Bowl Ad

(03:10–22:54)

The “How We Did It” Breakdown

• Whimsical Idea Becomes Reality

  • Jason got the initial idea after casually seeing a Super Bowl mention on Bluesky:

    “I saw something about the Super Bowl like 10 days ago... and I thought, we should buy a Super Bowl ad.” (04:22, Jason)

  • He researched regional ad buys—a much cheaper alternative to national commercials—by googling “smallest media market in the United States.”
  • Ottumwa, Iowa (media market: ~25,000 people) became the target, leveraging the local KU station’s remaining Super Bowl ad slots.

• Navigating the Purchase

  • The ad cost $2,550 (discounted for not using an agency).

    “Because we didn’t use an agency to buy the ad, we just bought it ourselves. So we saved like $450.” (08:33, Jason)

  • They referenced The Verge’s 2015 local-market ad as partial inspiration.

• Super Bowl Ad Production

  • The team wrote and recorded the ad in record time, emphasizing 404 Media’s values.

    “What are we if not cheap and quick?” (13:13, Sam Cole)

  • Evie Kwong (social media manager) edited it together.
  • The process highlighted how “just doing stuff” is often easier than people assume:

    “You can just do stuff. You can just do that. It does not actually involve, like, expensive experts…” (19:45, Sam Cole)

Reception & Aftermath

• Documenting the Ad

  • A major challenge was finding Ottumwa locals to confirm the ad actually aired. Dozens reached out in response to a podcast callout.
  • Only three people were actually there watching when it aired, but multiple media outlets covered the feat.

    “I think about a hundred people probably signaled me or emailed me saying that they had a connection to Ottumwa, which is super interesting for a town of 25,000 people. But only, I think, like, three people were actually there at the moment.” (17:44, Jason)

• Notable Quotes & Humor

  • “Congratulations on being the single most expensive 404 Media podcast listener…” (21:37, Joseph)
  • The possibility of future shenanigans (Times Square ad? NYSE bell ringing?) is on their minds.

• Meta-Observations

  • The team reflects on how such stunts reveal the “demystification” of supposedly exclusive media/advertising spaces and their own creative process:

    “I feel like that’s a common denominator in a lot of things that we do—just, just do stuff.” (19:45, Sam Cole)

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2. Ring’s Dystopian AI Comes to the Super Bowl

(27:57–48:39)

The Super Bowl Ad & Product Evolution

• Ring’s “Search Party” Feature

  • The ad touts AI-enabled lost pet detection: upload a photo, and every Ring camera in the area scans to help owners track down missing pets.
  • New features like “Familiar Faces” (facial recognition for humans), and Firewatch (wildfire detection) indicate a shift from passive to active, AI-powered surveillance.

    “They have launched this new feature called Search Party…if you lose your dog, you will be able to upload a photo…and it will activate all of the Ring cameras in your neighborhood to look for this dog using artificial intelligence.” (29:04, Jason)

• User Consent & Defaults

  • The feature appears enabled by default, with some users scrambling to opt out after the announcement.

    “I was seeing what users were experiencing and it looked like it was enabled by default and people were teaching one another, ‘Well, I don’t want to be part of this search party feature—how do I turn it off?’” (32:06, Joseph)

• Immediate Online Reaction

  • The ad was panned on social media for dystopian undertones:

    “Kind of like uniformly online, people [think] this [is] super dystopian…people correctly were like, I don’t think this is for dogs.” (33:40, Jason)

Ring’s History: From Cop Partnerships to Viral Pivot, Back Again

• Early Years: Cozying Up to Law Enforcement

  • Ring rapidly built thousands of surveillance-sharing partnerships with police, gifting cameras and swag, in exchange for community buy-in.

    “The ways that Ring went about signing up cops was really wild in my opinion—giving them free stuff, parties, that sort of thing.” (37:04, Jason)

  • These partnerships allowed police warrantless access to user footage.

• The “Nice” Viral Video Era

  • Following public scrutiny, Ring temporarily softened its image by leaning into viral, “wholesome” content (e.g., delivery drivers, promposals—even a failed TV show “Ring Nation”).

    “Ring started to pitch itself more as this goofy gadget.” (41:31, Jason)

• Reversion: Back to Full-Throttle Surveillance

  • Founder Jamie Siminoff returned in 2025, bringing renewed focus on police partnerships and AI-driven surveillance.

    “From the get-go, he’s like: police partnerships are back…we are doing surveillance again.” (41:52, Jason)

  • The “luxury surveillance” framework (per Chris Gillard) positions Ring as a consumer product for privileged homeowners but with broad, chilling implications:

    “This is a surveillance dragnet we have built ourselves…with the pressures of capitalism…tied into consumerism…it is now turned into this nationwide surveillance dragnet that is being networked together and AI is being added to it. I don’t think it’s going to end well for us.” (44:14, Jason)

Flock Partnership & Speculation about ICE

(44:43–48:39)

• Clarifying Rumors
  • There is widespread misinformation that Flock’s partnership means ICE can access Ring cameras.

    “There is absolutely no evidence of that…What is happening is that Flock…brings together license plate readers…and the idea is to bring Ring footage into that so police can request from Ring camera owners more easily…” (45:11, Joseph)

  • Jason underscores the importance of being precise with speculation:

    “It’s kind of tricky because I do think that this is something to be very concerned about…But…it is inaccurate at the moment to say that ICE has access to Ring footage.” (46:36, Jason)

  • The potential remains, underscoring the need for continued vigilance.

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On the DIY spirit:
  “You can just do stuff. It does not actually involve, like, expensive experts in the advertising industry…” (19:45, Sam Cole)

• On Ring's pivot: “Ring is bought by homeowners…tied into consumerism, our media ecosystem…the fact that for a long time now there’s been this idea that our neighborhoods are getting a lot more dangerous even though the crime stats don’t back that up.” (43:13, Jason)

• On the Super Bowl ad's effectiveness:
  “Congratulations on being the single most expensive 404 Media podcast listener…” (21:37, Joseph)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Super Bowl Ad Journey (start to finish): 03:10–22:54
• Ring’s Super Bowl Ad Discussion Begins: 27:57
• Search Party and AI Features Explained: 28:28–33:40
• Ring History & Image Rebrand: 35:22–44:14
• Flock Partnership, ICE Rumors, and Fact-Checking: 44:43–48:39

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Final Thoughts

The episode artfully slips from self-aware newsroom capers into sobering analysis of surveillance tech’s creep into everyday life. The story of 404 Media’s own Super Bowl ad is surprisingly accessible, even inspiring—proof that even small, scrappy outlets can play with big media, if they’re willing to DIY it. But the Ring segment carries a clear warning: consumer-centric surveillance technology is evolving rapidly and often outpaces the legal and ethical frameworks that might restrain it. The hosts—mixing irreverence with clear expertise—strike a balance between entertainment and solid public interest journalism.

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For Listeners

Whether you came for the antics or the investigative reporting, you’ll walk away understanding how easy it is to disrupt traditional media—and how much harder it is to rein in privatized surveillance “innovations” like Ring. For ongoing updates and bonus stories, 404 Media encourages listeners to subscribe and participate.

Transcript

[Jason]

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[Sam Cole]

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[Sam Cole]

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[Jason]

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[Joseph]

Hello, welcome to the 404 Media podcast where we bring you unparalleled access to hidden worlds, both online and IRL. 404 Media is a journalist family company and needs your support. To subscribe, go to 404Media co. As well as bonus content every single week. Subscribers also get access to additional episodes where we respond to their best comments. Gain access to that content at 404 Media co. I'm your host Joseph and with me are the 404 Media co founders. The first being Sam Cole.

[Sam Cole]

Hello.

[Joseph]

Emmanuel Mayberg.

[Emmanuel Mayberg]

Hello.

[Joseph]

And Jason Kebler.

[Jason]

I feel like Sam, there's like a Radi rainbow, a rainbow background behind Sam. Very cool. Very cool.

[Sam Cole]

People complained that it was too much distracting light when it rotated colors. So now it's just this color.

[Jason]

I think it's cool you had like.

[Joseph]

A RGB gamer like setup or something.

[Sam Cole]

I sure did. Which was cringe. So we're not doing that anymore. Thank you YouTube commenters for setting me straight.

[Jason]

Well, Emmanuel is still in the like the shades are drawn vampire in a vampire esque way because it would backlight you but also perhaps like fry you to death.

[Emmanuel Mayberg]

You open those, it's the guy, the gamer drawing the blinds meme. That's my life. That's who I am.

[Joseph]

Yeah, absolutely. Sam, you mentioned YouTuber. I actually been meaning to do this for a while. Maybe I'll get into the swing of it. But if you're listening to the audio version of the podcast, I just want to let you know there is a YouTube version as well where you can see Sam's rainbow light effect and Emmanuel's drawn curtains and my light, you know, flooding my eyelids at the same time as well. So if you'd Rather watch on YouTube, there's always a link in the show description. Also, you know, subscribe on YouTube and you can see it there as well. Last week we had something of a mystery, something of a very strange request. We were desperately trying to Find somebody in Ottomwa, Iowa.

[Jason]

Right, Jason, I think Ottumwa is out saying it. Yeah, but you're British, so you can be excused. But yes, the Ottumwa mystery has been solved. Many people, many people reached out from Ottumwa or the surrounding areas. So thank you so much. The podcast was ultimately the place where we found the Ottumwans that we required. So thank you so much.

[Joseph]

So let's just get into it with this story and then for those who don't already know, the mystery will reveal itself. The headline watch 404 Media's Super bowl ad. I don't think anybody saw that coming. I think barely we saw it coming as well. But yes, we bought a Super bowl ad and we needed people to watch it and document it so then we could well confirm it was real and then actually write about it and then talk about it here. So we'll get to all of that. Jason, where did this idea come from for 404 Media to buy a Super bowl ad?

[Jason]

Let's. Let's play the ad first.

[Joseph]

Sure, we'll do that right here.

[Sam Cole]

In a world increasingly controlled by big tech AI slop and social media algorithms controlling what you see, Four4Media focuses on something else. Real information you can actually use.

[Joseph]

If you're sick of the mainstream media support. Our worker founded and journalist owned publication.

[Jason]

Our reporting has triggered congressional investigations, shut down surveillance programs, and revealed how the world of tech really works.

[Emmanuel Mayberg]

Most importantly, Four4Media is made by humans for humans.

[Sam Cole]

Find us at Four4Media co.

[Jason]

Okay, where, where did this idea come from? It came from, I saw something about the Super bowl like 10 days ago on Blue sky, just someone tweeting about the super bowl. And I thought we should buy a Super bowl ad. It was like an errant thought on a. I think a Friday afternoon. I was like super bored. And so I decided to start looking into how we could purchase a Super bowl ad, which famously cost $8 million this year.

[Joseph]

Yeah, or 10 million as well, according to mine and Jason's favorite podcast, the Town we listen to all the time about Hollywood and the advertising industry, all that sort of thing. But, well, how do you even go about figuring out how to then get a Super bowl ad? Like, literally, what do you Google? Buy super bowl ad, please. How do you start?

[Jason]

So I wish that I had a better story to tell, but I think I'll just be honest. So I knew that it was possible to buy a regional ad, meaning that the ad would air only in one media market. And so basically, like the way that super bowl ads work is there's the national broadcast. These are the ones that cost eight, $10 million, sometimes more. And everyone in the country that's watching the super bowl sees those. But because the super bowl is on broadcast television, each individual station that broadcasts the super bowl gets some number of ad slots that they are allowed to sell themselves. And so it will air like only on that station. And so I literally just googled smallest media market in the United States and I think like three or four came up. But one of them was Ottumwa, Iowa and they have a station there called ku, so like K Y O U. And it reaches about 25,000 people. So it is very small. That's very small. For example, there's like three times that many people at the super bowl itself. But I then I was like, well, I don't really know how to buy an ad, but I'm just going to try. And so I went to KU's website and I clicked the advertise with us button and I found the email and I sent an email and said, hello, I'd like to buy a Super bowl ad, please. Do you have any super bowl ads available?

[Joseph]

Just before you continue there, were you expecting like an actual response from that or is it more? I don't know. We'll just email them and see.

[Jason]

Well, the actual truth is that I emailed a different station that was like the Fox station in Ottumwa and they were like, we're not showing the Super Bowl. You've emailed the wrong people. But then I then I looked again and I found KU that was actually emailing it. And I did email them and I said, advertising inquiry Dash super bowl ad slots. Hi there. I'm a co founder of the media company 404 Media looking to do a local ad buy before or during the super bowl on ktvo, which was ku. Actually, can you please send me your rate info about this? And they responded within 10 minutes and said thank you for inquiring. The super bowl this year is on ou, which is NBC. And one of those things. And then she said, we will get you rates over asap. And then a few minutes later she sent me the cost for these and said we have one slot left for the Super Bowl. And she said that the rate was $3,000. And then she said that they had one after the game was over for twelve $51,250. And then they had one like earlier in the day for just $150 like at 11am But I figured we needed one during the super bowl and interestingly, like she said, it cost $3,000, but when I actually went to pay, it was actually only $2,500. $2,550.

[Joseph]

Yes. Yeah.

[Jason]

Because we didn't use an agency to buy the ad, we just bought it ourselves. And so they're like, normally there's some sort of like markup, you use another company. But because we just did it ourselves, we saved like $450. So that was, that was good.

[Joseph]

So you send those emails, they get back to you very quickly, very keen. I mean they're very, very busy at this time of year and we're exceptionally lucky that we got in when we did. Like, if, if that slot had been taken, we probably would have to have gone to one of the other media markets. Can you remember what any of those were? But like, they weren't as small as this.

[Jason]

Right. Uh, I mean, I actually am not positive what the actual smallest one was because again, this was like such a whim that it's not like I emailed a ton of them. I actually only emailed this one station and I was like. Cuz I didn't want to do a, a lot of, a lot of this and like have no one respond. So I was like, I wonder like, maybe they'll, maybe they'll respond. And I like sent one email. I left the room, I came back and they said, sure. So. So it was so quick that I'm like, actually not sure, but we were kind of inspired by the Verge that did this in 2015. And I think they paid $700 for Helena, Montana. So I would imagine that Helena is probably still a pretty small media market. I think that there's like a couple in like Idaho. They're largely in like smallish towns in like the Midwest or like the Badlands region of the country. And I think it's not just like, hey, these are small towns, but it needs to be a combination of, this is a small town. But they also have their own bespoke small TV station that.

[Joseph]

Right.

[Jason]

Carries the Super Bowl. And so it's not like you can just like look for the smallest town in America. You need like the smallest town that also has a TV broadcaster.

[Joseph]

Yeah. And local TV and local stations may have been gutted in the same way. You know, a lot of local institutions have been gutted. So like, you might get to a small market and then realize, oh, there isn't actually a market here because we can't deliver an advertisement.

[Jason]

I think also like a happy Accident in here was that KU is not owned by Sinclair Broadcasting, which. Which is like this mega corporation that has been pushing like super gutting local news and pushing a lot of it rightward and having these like, they're called must air segments where it's kind of like the nationalization of local news where they, they require local broadcasters to run these like, national stories, which are also often bullshit.

[Joseph]

They're just like, read out this script essentially. And like it's. I mean, it's bordering a propaganda sometimes. It's nuts.

[Jason]

Yeah. And so, I mean, I'm not saying that the company that owns KU is like, you know, a saint or anything, but like, of the large ones, it's. It's one. It's owned by like one of the better companies, as I can tell. But I guess I ended up paying like, sending the money for this on Tuesday, Tuesday before the Super Bowl. So we had to make this very quickly.

[Joseph]

Yeah, that's the next bit. That's. Oh, shit. So now we have to make it. Make an ad for the Super Bowl. How. How did we go about that? Quite quickly. Probably the quickest super bowl ad that's ever been made.

[Jason]

Yeah. Well, I have. I have a couple friends who like, work in advertising and a couple friends who work in Hollywood because I live in la, like writers and things like that. So I mentioned it to them and they're like, you have to go high concept. You have to go like crazy high, like production value, like, let's see if we can get a celebrity involved. And I was like, I don't think that's really our. And we also have time. We don't have money. We have time. Like, we just gotta do something. So I believe, like, you wrote the script and Sam edited it and it was just 30 seconds, like, yeah, you.

[Joseph]

Wrote a quick overview of what we're all about. I went in, did an alternate, like, edited version. Then Sam and Emmanuel did as well. And then we all read it out, basically. I mean, Sam, what did you think of this process in making the. Not only the cheapest and the quickest super bowl there, but probably the best Super Bowl?

[Sam Cole]

I mean, what are we if not cheap and quick? You know, I'm looking at the slack. It's our new tagline. I'm looking at our slacks, talking about this. And the first time Jason says anything about super bowl ads is on 29 January, which is like nine days before the roll. He just says, should we buy a Super bowl ad? And you say, we could. And Jason's like, you can buy an ad on the super bowl broadcast in like, Butte, Montana for $300, which is not what we ended up doing. And then you have a b. A Super bowl ad, and then you put it on YouTube. And I was like, not going to lie. I like that.

[Jason]

So.

[Sam Cole]

And then an hour, literally later is when Jason just described. KTVO has replied about the advertising inquiry. And at that point I'm like, okay, so we're making a Super bowl ad. I guess I feel like we have a lot of ideas that are like, I don't know, schemes, for lack of a better word, where we have just like an idea and we say, what if we did this? Wouldn't that be funny? And that's kind of where my mind was. I was like, that wouldn't be really funny, you know?

[Jason]

Lol.

[Sam Cole]

And then Jason's emailing, like, networks. Like, I guess now we're gonna do that. Yeah. It was like nine days from the moment I guess Jason had the idea to airing it on the Super Bowl.

[Jason]

Just so hilarious. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I was just feeling very kind of like I had a lot of cold brew that day.

[Sam Cole]

Yeah, that's usually how this stuff happens. Yeah.

[Jason]

Yeah.

[Sam Cole]

That's how the zine happened. That's probably how this website happened. Like, we just have like a lot of caffeine one day and then decide to do something silly, goofy.

[Jason]

What was so. So Evie, our social media. Evie Kwong, our social media person, edited this together and did like an incredible job, in my opinion. She did a very, very good job. But what was yalls like experience of reading the ad? Did it feel. Did it feel Super Bowl? Yeah.

[Joseph]

Emmanuel?

[Emmanuel Mayberg]

No, definitely not. I mean, good, good reason to upgrade my setup for sure. I don't know if people notice or if you've mentioned it already, but as you can tell if you're watching the video of the podcast, Joe is making very friendly eye contact with the viewer while he's doing the pod. And I think Jason is as well. Or maybe he. Maybe his. His. What is it?

[Joseph]

Teleprompter. Yeah.

[Emmanuel Mayberg]

What is it called?

[Jason]

Yeah, we have teleprompters. This is. This is the media business, baby.

[Joseph]

Right?

[Emmanuel Mayberg]

So I need one of those. I need a better camera. I mean, I think our fans in the Midwest will forgive it for now, but I feel like now that we did it once, like, surely we will have to like one up it next year. I don't know how we're going to do that, but I need better equipment for it. Maybe we should have, like, our own alternative super bowl halftime show.

[Joseph]

Oh, yeah.

[Emmanuel Mayberg]

Like, it could be, like, next year. It could be, like, whatever, Bad Bunny. And then there's the Turning Point usa. And then there's us. We'll have our own halftime show.

[Sam Cole]

I had something like that. Text me and be like, I didn't know it was that easy to do it. Maybe next year I'll do it. So I'm hoping next year maybe just like, so many, like, completely just, like, ad buys for no reason. Just random people.

[Joseph]

Just a deluge of terrible, terrible efforts all across the country during the Super Bowl. That'd be so ugly.

[Emmanuel Mayberg]

I did. I did actually think it might not get on the air because I imagine. Because, I mean, it's going out over the airwaves, I suppose. So I thought there would be, like, FCC something. They're like, this ad is too stupid to, like, feed to the American people. You can't put this out.

[Sam Cole]

Or, like, it ran a car lotto ad.

[Jason]

Like, yeah, it was the Iowa Lottery. So, I mean, that was the other thing. And, I mean, we did the call out, you know, we did the call out last week for Ottumwa, Iowa, but we wanted it in real time. And I feel like Sam and I were, like, semi serious about going to Ottumwa to view this. I think I was gonna say before.

[Sam Cole]

We could take it once again, I was like, maybe I can get Jason to fly to Ottumwa and then stand him up.

[Jason]

I feel like if I had one more day, like, if you had said a one day earlier, I would have bought tickets.

[Sam Cole]

I think about it for sure. It was like, if one of us had shown a ticket receipt, we were going to Iowa for sure that weekend.

[Jason]

But, yeah, but, like, I think a hundred people probably signaled me or emailed me saying that they had a connection to a tumwa, which is super interesting for a town of 25,000 people. But only, I think, like, three people were actually there at the moment. But I do feel bad because a lot of people were, like, assuming this was for some very high journalistic purpose, like, you need me to go investigate something for you, or there's, like, a horrible surveillance situation happening or something like that. But I was like, no, we need someone to film our super bowl ad. But people seem to think that it was quite cool in the end. So I think it went over very well. A few places wrote about it. Like, I think Inc Magazine, or was it Fortune wrote about it.

[Joseph]

Niemann Lab, I think, as well. Yeah. Yes, it is goofy. Yes, it's something of a stunt. I still, I think, learned sort of what Emmanuel touched on, you know, the FCC stuff there. Like, we had to be careful about, you know, what exactly do we put in this advert and footage and all of that sort of thing. And just the fact that it's possible. I don't know, it's one of those fun experiments that you get to learn about something you wouldn't in any other way, and then your readers and your listeners get to as well. Like, huh. That's possible. Sure. Okay. So, yeah, I don't know. It was totally worth it. It was fun.

[Jason]

Yeah. I also, to Emmanuel's point, I was expecting the station to be like, it has to be in this specific format with this specific resolution and this type of file, and it has to be delivered on some, like, weird server and things like that. But I actually just, like, emailed them an MP4 file that I think probably came off of Evie's phone.

[Joseph]

That's crazy.

[Jason]

And they were like, looks good. Like. Okay.

[Joseph]

It's good.

[Jason]

Thank you.

[Sam Cole]

I think something we find out all the time is like. Like a theme. And the things that we do is just like, you can just do stuff. You can just do that. It's not actually. It does not actually involve, like, expensive experts in the advertising industry to do this. It does not involve, like, I don't know. I mean, it's. You know, it's. I feel like that's a common denominator in a lot of things that we do Just. Just do do stuff.

[Joseph]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Emmanuel Mayberg]

Now that I think about it, two things that we should try and actually blog about is.

[Sam Cole]

I just got so tired.

[Emmanuel Mayberg]

Times Square. Times Square ad. Right. What's the biggest space we can get? And then, I mean, we have to ring the bell at the stock exchange. Right.

[Jason]

Like, when we go public during the ipo.

[Sam Cole]

Yeah, yeah, when we go public.

[Emmanuel Mayberg]

Mm.

[Sam Cole]

Okay.

[Jason]

Times Square is definitely on the list. We need to. We need to be in Times Square. For sure. For sure.

[Joseph]

Well, you've looked into it, and, I.

[Jason]

Mean, it's not that expensive. It's. Right. We were going to do it a few months ago.

[Joseph]

Yeah. And this came up recently because the Globe, the Golden Globes, was having its podcast of the year awards. Like, kind of pseudo awards. Right. And who's that guy? Daily Wire. Anyway, whatever. On the right. Trying to get the nomination and then eventually win that and like, bought out Times Square for hundreds of thousands of dollars or something like that. So you can just rock up and do it. But they did it. Yes. In a much more Expense, obviously much more expensive way than we would ever do. But I do remember Jason exploring that at some point. And I would say, I think this TV ad, yes, obviously it was a small market and you know, more people, I think it was, inc pointed this out that more people saw the ad on Instagram when we uploaded it there than probably saw it actually on tv, which is a very funny thing to point out as well. That said, you know, apparently somebody asked me on Bluesky saying, hey, I just found your podcast because of the ad. So if you're, if you're that person, I can't remember your username, but if you're that person, you're listening to the podcast now. Congratulations on being the single most expensive 404 Media podcast listener where we had to die for the super bowl to get one podcast listener. So really, really appreciate that.

[Jason]

Yeah, it is funny. Like, I don't know, I don't know if this was like worth it on a dollar per user, like acquisition level. But if you, if you did learn about us through that podcast ad only you never, never heard about us before or that super bowl ad only, I think let us know. I did get an email immediately following it. One email from one guy who was like, I'm in a tomo and I saw your ad. So that's good. It did work. We've got one podcast listener and one emailer from this.

[Joseph]

Yeah, very good. Well, we'll leave that there. We'll see what happens next year. When we come back after the break, we're going to talk about another super bowl ad, but the American consumerism surveillance state that his it has reintroduced. We'll be right back after this.

[Jason]

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[Joseph]

All right, and we are back. The headline of this piece again by Jason with Ring. American consumers built a surveillance dragnet. So I'm sure many listeners will have seen or heard about this other super bowl ad from the surveillance camera company Ring. Jason, before we get into sort of the article and the thesis behind it, can you describe this advert the Ring had during the Super Bowl?

[Jason]

Yeah, I think we should play part of that here as well since it's short.

[Ring Advertiser]

This is Milo Pets are family but every year 10 million go missing and the way we look for them hasn't changed in years. Until now. One post of a dog's photo in the Ring app starts. Outdoor cameras looking for a match. Search party from Ring uses AI to help families find lost dogs. Since launch, more than a dog a day has been reunited with their family. Be a hero in your neighborhood with search party available to everyone for free right now. Join the neighborhood [e-mail] Our ad was.

[Jason]

Not the worst super bowl ad because this was the worst super bowl ad. I think like there were a lot of quite bad ones, but I think this is maybe like the most damaging one. Sam had a post about it saying like this is going to be taught in advertising classes someday which we can get into. But basically Ring is like the doorbell camera company. I'M sure everyone's familiar with, with Ring, and they have launched this new feature called Search Party. And what search party is, according to the super bowl ad, and they actually announced this a few weeks ago. But this is, like, where it got the most attention, is like, if you lose your dog, you will be able to upload a photo of your dog to a form on Ring, and it will activate all of the Ring cameras in your neighborhood to look for this dog using artificial intelligence. So basically, it is like. I mean, it's not facial recognition, because it's a fucking dog, but it's like the same technology that that facial recognition uses. It's like, you know, image matching and things like that. And it, like, turns all of the Ring cameras into this, like, networked spy apparatus and then, like, alerts you if the dog is found.

[Joseph]

Yeah. As you say, not facial recognition in a literal human sense. Dog recognition, it's almost like. It's almost the thing between object recognition, like identifying a weapon, identifying a vehicle, and facial recognition. It's like this in between, which is like, this is a unique living creature, and the cameras are going to identify it in the local proximity. It's almost like the next step up. It's strange.

[Jason]

It is. But let me just say before we get more into it, that alongside of this, and not in the super bowl ad, but at the same time, Ring announced a product called Familiar Faces, which is just literally facial recognition, where you tell the Ring camera who your friends and family are so that when they show up to your house, it says their name. Like when you get a little push notification, like so. And so is at the. At your house. Like, I could upload a photo of you, Joseph, and if I had a Ring camera and you showed up at my house, it would say, joseph is here. So they are just straight up doing facial recognition now, which, as we'll get into, is something that they claimed that they were not gonna do for a really long time. Or at least like, when people were talking about fears of facial recognition, Ring would say, oh, we do object recognition, which is different, because they would be like, oh, like a raccoon has come up near your house. Or like a person, or like a car, but not this person or this car or this dog. And like, that is the thing that is different.

[Joseph]

Now, another thing they've launched or introduced is Firewatch, which I need to look into a little bit more. But it's when there's wildfires and the cameras can detect if there are fires nearby, that sort of thing. But, yes, it's sort of this suite of new products which are turning Ring from sort of a passive surveillance collection technology into a much more active one where it is looking for specific people, specific animals and specific situations. Before this I was double checking, you know, is it opt in, is it opt out? And users were reporting like, again, I don't use Ring, so I don't have like the app to go check myself. But I was seeing what users were experiencing and it looked like it was enabled by default and people were teaching one another, well, I don't want to be part of this search party feature actually, how do I turn it off? And they had to go into the settings and figure that out and all of that sort of thing. So I think it's one thing to introduce the feature and that is the focus. It's another to like turn it on by default. And of course Ring would prefer that because the tool is going to be a lot more effective if everybody is opted in by default. So before we just get into sort of the background of Ring and sort of how we got here, Jason, what were people's reactions to the super bowl ad? I mean, maybe not representative, but a lot of people didn't seem to like it.

[Jason]

Yeah, I mean it's a little hard to say just because like YouTube comments and social media is really loud, but kind of like uniformly online. People like this super dystopian people correctly were like, I don't think this is for dogs. You know, the initial feature is for dogs, but it's like a very small step from there for it to be used for, I don't know, like quote unquote suspicious people or suspect of a crime or you know, all of the things that people have been using Ring cameras for for a long time. But the ways that it has been used in the past have been a lot more manual and a lot more like ad hoc. And like we've talked about with things like Flock and with Fusis, which is these AI enabled smart cameras that are networked. It's like once you add AI to these surveillance systems, as you said, they go from being something that's like passive that you can go say like I need to check this camera at this time or whatever and they become like these really proactive, you know, like surveillance tools.

[Joseph]

Yeah. So Ring does that has that ads. It seems like a lot of people are annoyed. But this article is more about was a couple of things. It's like a reminder of, hey, remember Ring? They're back. Because they kind of had something of a. Of A rebrand. And then you talk about, like, how we got here. Can you just talk about that rebrand briefly? Because it does feel like, as you write, Ring kind of went quiet for a while. Like, what was the deal with that?

[Jason]

Yeah, so back at Vice, there was maybe like a two year period between like 2018 and 2020ish, where the way that we were writing about Flock now we were writing about Ring, like we were filing so many public records requests, we were writing so many articles about Ring. And it was a very similar story to Flock in that Ring kind of went city by city and they signed cops up to this partnership program that they had. And then they used the cops to like, sell Ring cameras to the communities and then sell like, the, the theory of ring and like, the concept of ring to other police departments. And so, like, we wrote about them probably first when they had a couple dozen partnerships with cops, which I'll get into what those are in a second. But like, by the end of this period of reporting, they had like several thousand and it happened like, really, really quickly. And so what these partnerships were were, they were footage sharing partnerships with police. And so basically, like, if you were a police department, you had this partnership, Ring would create a portal where you could request footage from Ring camera owners in your community, and you didn't need a warrant for this. And so basically, like, ring users were able to directly send footage to the cops using this. And the ways that Ring went about signing up cops was like, really wild in, in my opinion, giving them free.

[Joseph]

Stuff, parties, that sort of thing.

[Jason]

They were giving cops free stuff. They were throwing them parties with like, Shaquille o'. Neal. They were doing these weird incentive programs. So basically, like, they would give cops free ring cameras and then like, tell the cops to throw a party for their community and then raffle off those cameras to people. They gave like, discount codes to cops. So basically, like, if you were a cop in a small town, you could be like, use my code and you can save 20 off ring, you know, in the community. And then they also, like, gamified the sending of information to cops. Like they talked about, at least based on emails that, that we had back in the day. They were like, you could get free ring swag if you sent footage to cops, things like that. And then, I mean, I think the other thing is that Ring was always sold as like a surveillance product to people. You know, it was like, stop package thieves. It was, you know, famously like, bought by Amazon to prevent package thefts. But Ring also did a lot to sort of like incentivize people to like film viral moments, more or less like delivery driver and things like that, which I guess I'll get into in a second. But like this origin story in the early days they were like really focused on crime. They were super focused on crime and they're super focused on like public safety and things like that. And there was a lot of like fear mongering in, in the early days of Ring to be like, stop suspicious people in your neighborhoods and, and things like that.

[Joseph]

Yeah, it very squarely starts with the cop stuff, those partnerships, all of that sort of thing. I can't remember the exact timeline. It's in the article for people who want to see that. But the CEO or rather the creator does leave for a short period and then it's around about this time I feel like Ring goes quite quiet and it does this slight rebrand or pivot to what you describe, which is that, oh, hahaha, we're just filming funny moments of delivery drivers or really wholesome moments and that sort of thing. And then they get posted on social media or people are encouraged to share them in part by Ring and Ring the company itself, but also, you know, the social media clout and retweets and likes you'll get from posting that sort of thing. Of course, ignoring the fact that this person being filmed has not asked or potentially consented to have, you know, their everyday interaction just filmed and put on the Internet for your viewing pleasure. Can you talk about that a little bit? Like, what was the deal there? And sort of why? I guess we don't really know why they did that pivot, but like what did you make?

[Jason]

I think it's because they were getting a lot of scrutiny. There was like, it was not just us writing about it, but there was like tons and tons of really high profile articles about Ring and its partnerships with cops. And like they were getting heat from like the EFF and the ACLU and people just saying like, this is really dystopian, this is really scary. And I think there was like this idea that it was surveillance tech. And I think that maybe alongside of that this is just me kind of like speculating, but alongside of that there were also these people posting these viral videos of delivery drivers falling down of like promposals. Like I've seen so many promposals shot through Ring cameras where it's like a high schooler asking someone else to prom through a Ring camera in some sort of like viral way. Like you show up at like a girl's house with like a guitar and you play a song for her like on the porch or whatever. And it's filmed like this was an entire genre of viral Ring video for a while. And then there's people like dancing on porches and things like that. And it became the subject of this very short lived Ring Nation TV show. But I think maybe Ring started to pitch itself more as this goofy gadget kind of. And around that time Jamie Siminoff, who is the founder of Ring, which it should be said was originally pitched on Shark Tank, that's like another like super critical part of Ring's origin story. But he leaves Amazon, he decides that he's gonna go. And so I think that maybe it's like the founder is gone. Like we are gonna try to be more of like a consumer product versus this like thing that's targeted at police.

[Joseph]

But he comes back.

[Jason]

So then what happens is like last summer Simonov came back to Ring, he came back to Amazon and he's overseeing Ring again. And like from the get go he's like, police partnerships are back. Like we're doing them again. AI is like our new thing. We are going to just like kind of go like mask off, foot on the gas. We are doing surveillance again. We're like leaning back into to public safety. And that has been, you know, a lot of people have reported on that over the last year. We haven't really done much on Ring just because we've been super busy. But I have always, especially because of our early reporting on this, like advice thought like Ring is a super important surveillance company to keep tabs on. And I think that this super bowl ad and just the fact that people are paying attention to it and the Flock partnership that we'll talk about in a second just sort of signals that this is not a company that we can forget about. This is not a company that we can ignore. And this is, I mean it's pro. It's the biggest like consumer surveillance tech company that I can think of. And I think to. To spoil alert, your podcast document here you have what is luxury surveillance and how does it tie in here? I did an interview with Chris Gillard a few months ago about this concept of luxury surveillance, which is surveillance that rich people buy to surveil both themselves, but also to surveil people in their neighborhoods. And like this is exhibit 1A of what luxury surveillance is. It's like Ring is bought by homeowners for the most part to surveil their, you know, neighborhoods. It is a lot of Them are buying it because of like explicit fear mongering about like the safety of American cities and American suburbs and things like that. And so there's like, it's tied into consumerism. It's tied into just like our media ecosystem, the fact that like, for a long time now there's been this idea that our neighborhoods are getting a lot more dangerous, even though the crime stats don't back that up. It's tied to things like Nextdoor, which is, you know, a hyperlocal social media network. And it's tied to Neighbors, which is Ring's explicit social media app where you can just like post footage on the social media app. And so this is a surveillance dragnet that we have built ourselves, you know, with sort of the pressures of capitalism and all that. But like, this is, this is something that like the American consumer has bought and it is now turned into this nationwide surveillance dragnet that is being networked together and AI is being added to it. And I don't think it's going to like end well for us.

[Joseph]

Yeah, it's dogs right now, but we'll see later. I think that's a really good way to put it. You mentioned this Flock partnership. So look, there is frankly a lot of misinformation about this. Not going to go super into that. But people are conflating our reporting about Flock, which shows that local cops were doing lookups and license plate readers made by Flock for ice. They're then conflating that with Flock's partnership with Ring and saying, oh, that means ICE has like direct access to Ring cameras. There's absolutely no evidence of that. Maybe that'll turn out to be the case later. Maybe they will go and do that, inspired by all of this misinformation. But that is not what's happening right now. What is happening is that Flock actually has like a lot of different products. It has like it's, you know, all in one crime fighting tool that brings together license plate readers and then maybe body cam footage as well. It's drones as well that it makes and it brings all of that together. And the idea is to bring Ring footage into that so police can request from Ring camera owners more easily, efficiently access to footage recorded by those cameras. It's basically what they were doing before, but now it's done like in the even more efficient way. If those cops have bought Flock and sort of that overarching system. A lot of surveillance companies are doing this. They call it like a single pane of glass product because a cop doesn't Want to be jumping between different surveillance products. They want to see they're all in one big monitor in their control room in front of them.

[Jason]

But.

[Joseph]

As you say in the article, Jason, people making that leap from, oh, Ring and Flock working together, that means ICE is going to access ring cameras. You can see why they would make that. Because make that leap. Because they're scared of that and concerned about that. Like, is that fair, you think?

[Jason]

I mean, it's kind of tricky because I do think that this is something to be very concerned about, and it's something that could happen. And so I don't want to say, like, oh, it's not going to happen, that ICE is not going to access Ring camera footage. Like, it very well maybe happen. But it's not clear from what has already been reported what the vector for this would be. And it. I would say that is inaccurate at the moment to say that ICE has access to ring footage. And it's like, the way that this would work is like conflating a few different stories that we have reported and other people have reported over the last year in a way that I think is kind of dangerous. Because basically, like, the vector is, well, Flock is used by local police, and local police sometimes perform lookups for ICE of the FLOCK automated license plate reader system. And Ring has a partnership with Flock. Therefore, ICE has access to Ring. And it's like, that's too. That's too much. You're taking too many leaps there. And that's not to say that this won't happen. It's just to say that we don't have reporting to say that. And it's not just like, it's good to speculate about this sort of thing and to warn about this sort of thing. And I think, you know, you, like, very often when a capability exists, it ends up getting used. But that's different from saying that it is being used now, because we don't know that. And I think that the specifics matter. And then the other thing I'll say is that, like, these companies are super litigious. They. And some of these posts are, like, really, really viral. And so, I don't know, it's like, we are very careful about what we say and what we do with regard to surveillance companies. Like, we're not going to pull punches, but at the same time, like, we need to make sure that what we report is. Is correct.

[Joseph]

Yeah, absolutely. All right, we'll leave that there. But we'll definitely keep a close eye on Ring. If any listeners do have tips about that of course. Always feel free to reach out if you are listening to the free version of the podcast. I'll now play us out. But if you are a paying 404 media subscriber, we're going to talk about Apple's lockdown mode and how it stopped the FBI. You can subscribe and gain access to that content@404 media code. As a reminder, 404 Media is journalist founded and supported by subscribers. If you do wish to subscribe to 404 Media and directly support our work, please go to 404 Media co. You'll get unlimited access to our articles and an ad free version of this podcast. You'll also get to listen to the Subscribers only section where we talk about a bonus story each week. This podcast is made in partnership with Kaleidoscope and Alyssa Midcalf. Another way to support us is by leaving a five star rating and review for the podcast. That stuff really helps us out. This has been 404 Media. We'll see you again next week.