GoKawiilAcross New York City, London, and Washington, DC, ads for Meta’s smart glasses have been plastered over with satirical posters from activist groups. One guerrilla ad calls these “the biggest advancement in pervert technology since the trenchcoat.” Another transposes the words “mass surveillance predator glasses” over influencer Kylie Jenner’s face, calling her out for partnering with the company as a glasses ambassador.
The message of these ads is clear. These glasses may violate your privacy — and would you trust Meta?
Meta seems spooked. For so long, the company’s privacy efforts for smart glasses have essentially relied on a single LED light and a policy that could be summed up as “don’t be a jerk.” Unfortunately, plenty of Meta glassholes have emerged over the last three years, filming often-sexualized videos of others without their consent, sometimes with the LED disabled. In a recent conversation with The Verge, Meta’s VP of wearables, Alex Himel, acknowledged that the company has become aware that an increasing number of people have tampered with the devices.
This explains why the company recently announced a mandatory software update that will disable the camera on all its glasses if the privacy light is physically tampered with. Last week, Instagram head Adam Mosseri said that the social media platform will take down videos taken with Meta’s glasses that depict harassment. Instagram might have opened a can of worms concerning content moderation, but attempts to curtail misuse are good. The problem is Meta could have been doing this all along.
Activist groups have plastered satirical anti-Meta Ray-Ban ads across New York City, Washington D.C., and London.
We can’t talk about the current era of smart glasses without acknowledging that Meta has made a series of savvy decisions. Where Google Glass was loud, the Ray-Ban Meta glasses were normal and discreet. Bose beat Meta to the idea of audio glasses by a few years, and Snap was first to the idea of glasses recording POV content for social platforms. But Meta was the one that executed on making affordable, name-brand, and genuinely stylish glasses by partnering with EssilorLuxottica. It’s a model that Google and Samsung are now emulating by partnering with Warby Parker and Gentle Monster. Other companies may have been first to the concept of smart glasses, but Meta notably has been the closest to making these genuinely mainstream.
Except, in recent months, Meta’s been playing its cards all wrong. First there was the NYT report that Meta was looking to roll out facial recognition tech for the glasses while privacy advocates were distracted. Then there was the Wired report that said Meta had silently shipped — but not activated — that tech to existing glasses. Now, there’s a Financial Times report that alleges Meta wants these glasses to record 24/7. Outside these larger beats, Meta has done things like remove the ability to opt out of voice recordings training its AI. Its executives occasionally say tone-deaf things like those who eschew smart glasses will be at a “cognitive disadvantage.” And amid legitimate privacy concerns following bad actors misusing the tech, the company has seeded these glasses to content creators alongside a splashy campaign with Kylie Jenner — one of the most visible but polarizing celebrities.
In a vacuum, a gaffe or two happens. When you screw up this many times, it starts to look like you’re purposefully missing the point.
Focusing on the privacy LED light, experts say, isn’t enough on its own.
“You cannot hinge your entire privacy policy on a single light. You can’t expect everyone in the world to know that and react to that,” says Uttara Ananthakrishnan, a technology professor at the University of Washington who specializes in how online interactions affect platforms, markets, and social behaviors. “It puts a lot of pressure on the person who isn’t even wearing the glasses to be aware of what another person is going to do.”
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