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Meta takes down a critical video about meta AI Glasses after filming at Meta
(reddit.com)
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by pieterr
by pieterr
These devices record video & sound track serve Ads and do Data fusion
What if you took a cam corder to a locker room? People would be upset, that is not allowed. That would not be nice. This is not nice either
What makes these things gross is that it's not obvious when someone is recording.
Also as much as you might like to punish investors (most of whom just have it in their 401k) because you don't like people with money, there are legal protections and the government can't just do something like that without an actual reason.
I don't think OP is trying to punish investors. I think they are saying the overall damage of letting these companies continue the current trend will be worse than the cost of unwinding it now.
I'm an advocate of reformed legislation to enable this.
There are also potential good uses for this tech. As someone who can't remember anyone's name worth crap, I can't wait for smart glasses with facial recognition and a name tag that hovers over everyone. I'm sure there will be great benefit in industry, giving workers heads up displays of all manner of important information.
Just like any new technology, there is equal potential for good and bad.
(Networked) surveillance cameras are just as problematic, but people don't notice them. Any ban should affect them too. I don't want to build a world where corporations and governments film and surveil us in public (or privately-owned public spaces, like malls, parking lots, etc.), but we're forbidden from doing the same.
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"I have no empathy for the two-thirds of Americans who will lose their personal savings that they need to retire" really undermines your case.
Edit: thoughtful tradeoffs against the stock market are reasonable. "I don't care" is not a carefully weighed tradeoff
Also "lose their personal savings" is a hyperbolic bad faith argument. If anyone's entire net worth is put into Meta stock, they get whats coming. Second, 93% of the stock market is owned by 10% of the population. The average American has more to gain from holding companies accountable than letting them rape and pillage our society so the richest people can have even more money.
Yikes. I thought this was America.
Which is a great mindset if you want to ignore new information and avoid improving the status quo.
He did harass them a bit. I'm looking forward to Meta taking down all videos where someone is a bit harassed. Internet will be a much nicer place!
Maybe I'm too European to understand, where exactly is harassment occurring? He's asking Meta employees questions, doesn't seem to follow them around, and when they walk away or say no, he doesn't exactly force them to stay or anything? Doesn't there have to be some intimidation or humiliation or similar for it to be harassment? Or asking employees what they think of the products they develop and support is the harassment part?
It is hypocrisy because Meta are knowingly creating a product that is perfectly suited for filming or photographing people without their knowledge. I find that it speaks ill of someone's character to pretend otherwise. And then they react badly when the very thing that these products enable happens to them. Demonstrating how this is a problem. They try to pretend it isn't a problem and then their actions demonstrate that it IS a problem.
It isn't because we do have laws that actually cover these things already. Of course, they're not the same across the world, law enforcement are not always aware of what the laws are, and this causes confrontations and sometimes overreach. There are also different legal systems that interpret laws differently. For instance in some legal systems the letter of the law carries more weight. In other legal systems the intent of the law is what matters.
There are two great risks here:
1) we pretend we can get by with existing laws. That the existing laws had enough foresight to meaningfully fulfil what the laws were intended to accomplish.
2) we can overreact and damage legitimate freedoms in our eagerness to solve an immediate problem.
For instance, where I live there is a law on the books that prohibits photographing someone being arrested. The law was well-meaning. It was there to protect people from being plastered all over the media until guilt has been determined in a court of law. But it would also prohibit someone from documenting police brutality during an arrest. So the law was never enacted because it failed to balance interests properly.
Right now, where I live, there is a real risk that rules about photography may become overly strict because politicians feel they have to demonstrate an ability to act. So they may end up passing laws that have unforeseen consequences while probably failing to make much of a difference anyway.
We know why these cameras pose a problem. Let's not insult each other's intelligence by pretending they are exactly like poking a traditional camera in someone's face. They're not and we should be able to agree on simple facts. But we also know that we need to have a public discussion about what we're going to do about this so we don't end up introducing draconian laws that take away freedoms we should have. For instance the freedom to document abuses of power, criminal activity, artistic expression etc.
Case closed. People that are very familiar with these glasses need to ask. These devices need to get banned.
Meta has made the concept popular, but hardware feasibility already tipped the scales, these cameras are going to be ubiquitous and if not in glasses then in even more hidden formats like buttons and pinhole wearables.
That said, I hope that real harassment starts to happen. Meta doesn't care about social boundaries when it benefits them, so it's fair game
Myspace had its run, it wasn't an especially good product. People moved to Facebook for any number of reasons, but those privacy settings ("friends only", etc) if they worked would've been pretty cool and good for the web
Unfortunately Zuckerberg doesn't care about privacy and actively spent time changing those from Friends Only to Public
And graph search. If I search for 'carrot' I can see any post you've ever made in your entire history with carrot in it
There's a reason Facebook's wall thing is now called 'timeline'. It lists everything you've ever done ever. Hope you managed to catch yet another one of their silent privacy changes. Oh, look, guess you have to log in to catch it. That means they rope you back into the system. Oh well. No biggie. Just the absolute antithesis of consent
It smacks of hypocrisy to me. Either ban them all or allow them all.
Now this might be normalized (which feels ugly) but in a few years it could just be “the way things are.”
I wonder what’s next. Constant haze of personal drones over all our heads, incidentally surveilling everyone 24/7 like ring doorbells in the sky?
It actually scares me that kids can read IG comment sections.
Instagram went from a site for photographers to Reels everywhere (and login walls on every page)
Zuckerberg is awful. Awful, awful, awful.
Now I don't depend on CIAbook, formerly known as Facebook, in any way, shape or form. And I don't use Suckerberg's Spyglasses either - hopefully others feel in a similar way, but unfortunately money convinces people, and I noticed a few "auditors" using spyglasses allegedly for "protection" (though, why they don't use normal vide cameras instead, beats me - perhaps they are not truthful). I fear that the spyglasses will be a success since Suckerberg is so sold on spying on mankind. If Google were not to exist, Facebook would be the number #1 evil company right now.
The marketers must be doing a great job.
My guess is if you went to the Apple Campus and held up an iPhone recording its employees, you'd have the same thing happen to you.
Meanwhile, these Meta glasses are far more ubiquitous, far more intrusive, being sold all over the world (not only the US) and their images have a lot less oversight than Flock's. And I don't need to tell anyone how irresponsible Meta is with other people's privacy.
And, yet, very few make a scandal about it.
Given what I've read about Flock recently, I'm actually not sure that is true.
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Google glasses came and went. Mets glasses should follow a similar fate.
Meta employees themselves couldn't tell if he was recording!
https://9to5google.com/2026/07/07/meta-ray-ban-smart-glasses...
"Oh no that's sci-fi and decades away", I really don't think so. I think neuralink, and competitors too, will next move on to reading the visual cortex. They already have plans to push data to the visual cortex, to enable the blind to "see", reading in healthy people seems quite doable.
I expect something like this to happen before 2030.
Regardless, I agree for now? Yes. But the future? I don't see it as blockable forever.
There are two ways we decide how severe the punishment for broken laws is. One is to enable just punishment. The other is deterrent. This may fall into "deterrent is the bigger part of the sentence", where people posting private information receive years in jail as a result.
There is a little bit of a conversation about this here:
https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/other-autre/cndii-cdncii...
And the above certainly covers Meta glasses too.
I think it won't be long before it's the posting of non-consensual imagery that is so criminal, that few will do so. For years in Quebec, sharing of images captured in public isn't really legit. You control "images of yourself", regardless of where they are taken, public places or not:
https://educaloi.qc.ca/en/capsules/your-right-to-control-pho...
And they're so worried about problems with image sharing, they've almost automated the process to deal with it:
https://www.quebec.ca/en/justice-and-civil-status/support-vi...
So this is already being criminalized in a lot of places.
> I expect something like this to happen before 2030.
I think 2030 is too early for that, medical tech is slower than most people expect. What may happen by then is (more) retinal implants connected to external cameras, as the early tests of that kind of thing are now well into the past and early models were actually authorised: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argus_retinal_prosthesis
The non-medical surveillance risk is higher. The smallest camera (as of 6 years ago) was already small enough to be easily missed amongst makeup sparkles if you were so inclined: https://originalpricing.com/ov6948-medical-camera-sensor/
Low resolution? Sure. Expensive, too. But I can easily see this being embedded in someone's nail lacquer, or eyelashes.
There have been hidden cameras of various kinds for a lot longer than that, hidden in buttons etc.
Between this and how easy it is to use AI to fake a picture of anyone you choose, anywhere you choose, doing anything you choose… I have absolutely no idea what will happen to consensus reality and shared social norms next year, let alone by 2030.
Glasses are passively recording. Recording with a phone is active (for the most part). You need to take it out and point it at what you are recording...
Every gym I've been to is full of people with phones out in the locker room, from cheap chain gyms to the nicer athletic club I currently go to. My experience is much closer to GP.
> Glasses are passively recording
All the smart glasses I know of have a light on when recording. My phone does not and can be much more discreet (subject to the fact that everyone has a phone out already).
I agree that if a location is actively banning phone use patrons should absolutely also be asked to take off smart glasses.
That's probably the best solution, deal with the functionality, not the device type.
Egregious example:
The problem isn't the profit. The problem is the lack of accountability.
What a great way to flip a discussion on privacy. I'm so happy for your investments. I have investments, too. That didn't stop me from telling our financial advisor that I didn't want shares in specific evil companies, regardless of their profitability. Maybe that's because I have enough money to be selective about it, which apparently will earn your respect.
As much as you might like to defend the wealthy because the only thing you care about is money, regardless of the human cost, doesn't mean that we can't use the law and the government to limit the harm being done to humans.
I know what you are going to say. "Fuck people! I only worship money!" but I think you need to look beyond just the financial aspects of this situation.
Simple as that
What stops you from using a notepad? I do not want my face uploaded to Facebook.
A local only face recognizer with consent of the face owners would be pretty useful for me. Although it would require a lot of 'hey, I'm bad at faces and names, do you mind if I take a picture so baby skynet can help me out?'
And if all fails, a "What up DUDE!" always works well too.
Now if you have a brain issue or something, I understand. But as a normal, healthy person, if we aren't making even the smallest effort to remember names, even the non-important ones, then we are more than likely the problem hah!
Cars are defacto illegal to operate in public. You must have a license to drive one.
You can’t yell fire to scare people.
You can’t buy a gun without some kind of check, or at all depending on location.
Civilians can’t operate jet engines with a variable nozzle size.
I cannot find any support for that. Variable nozzles are fairly rare (but not non-existent) on non-afterburning engines, and afterburning engines are fairly rare themselves (and sometimes restricted as part of demilitarization of a former military airframe), but both variable nozzles and afterburners are entirely legal for a civilian to own and operate.
> You can’t buy a gun without some kind of check
That comes with a caveat -- this only applies to retail sales. Over half of States do allow private purchases with no background check.
> As of 2022, about half of households with a worker age 55 and older had no retirement savings, and 32% had no retirement savings or a defined benefit plan.
The scaremongering about equity values and your average person’s holdings and exposure is not grounded in facts and reality. It’s simply scaremongering.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49357337 (citations)
On a parallel, can't we criticize any decision reducing the market cap of companies as an attack on the retirement portfolios? Say, if we required connected glasses to display a red light of more than x lumens when recording, would that be ok, even if it decreased Meta's market cap?
Any decision that results in a long term net loss across the entire public economy? Yes.
That's something that hurts a lot of people and that hurt should be carefully weighed against whatever the assumed benefit is. Sometimes that's worth it, sometimes it's not
But it's never OK to just hand wave with "well I don't care about that class of people so screw them"
And let's not move the goalposts. OPs proposal was a corporate breakup of massive scale, not a minimum lumens requirement.
At some point, similar to the camera/face recognition debate, it's about a choice of society that we want to live in. I think that's an interesting debate.
When we do, it can be pretty effective.
I just wish we did so more frequently, and, more importantly, that the consumer welfare principle hadn't emerged as the prevalent antitrust standard.
This video mainly shows a person approaching other people in public and recording them with these glasses. Which is one of the typical scenarios in which such a glasses are probably going to be used. And that video shows that even the Meta employees themselves generally do not seem to like it very much.
That is the point.
I'm not sure how it follows that glasses will encourage more of that behavior.
1) Can I use it to watch a more immersive movie without bothering people who may be in the next week?
2) Can I use it to make my games more enjoyable, either console or PC?
3) Can I use it to record IPSC/USPSA matches?
4) Can I use it for work?
I don't think blurring faces fully addresses that (though I'm not commenting on legality in Amsterdam).
I can see the argument that this video is in the public interest (hey, I'm Americanese), but it does seem plausible some people would find it a violation of a norm.
Not to mention the sarcastic, insincere tone he adopts after being asked what he's doing, claiming he's "such a huge fan" of the Meta glasses. There is a way to draw attention to privacy and this is a poor way to go about it.
[1] Cambridge Dictionary: 'behavior that annoys or upsets someone'
If everyone is wearing the glasses, wherever you go, you'll be filmed all the time, with most people not bothering to ask.
If anything I think the employees are all nice people. I get the message but it's cringy to watch.
I'm also against cameras everywhere, but let's not pretend this is not all also possible with other devices.
Of course, Meta taking this down but not a lot of other, completely the same, stuff is the bad thing.
Let's not pretend being able to beat someone with a rock and shoot them with a M61 Vulcan at 6k rounds per minute are the same thing just because they involve projectiles.
Facebook started explicitly (https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2003/11/19/facemash-creat...) as a way to creep on women.
Well, I’m looking forward of Meta going down. Now that would benefit the Internet.
After that, I think the fact that these glasses are allowed in the first place creates a problem that Meta as a platform cannot fix, because Meta is just one of the many many places where videos can be posted.
The argumentative method of rather than saying and doing what you believe and instead doing and saying what you are opposed to, is always weak and usually a great way to shoot yourself in the foot.
That being said. I agree 100% with making Meta Employees feel uncomfortable with their own products.
If you judge this video without any kind of context, then yes he is a weirdo harassing strangers who are just trying to go about their day. The point is that these glasses enable this weird behavior, and the people he's filming are (ostensibly) part of that system.
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It's obvious he's making a point, but there is no harassment that I see.
FFS ... it's this kind of goal-post shifting that ends with sign-holding grannies being arrested for terrorism.
It's fine if you're doing it to benefit them, then you can go much further, you can kill small children with your tractors (as is attempted in The Netherlands) or to murder coast guards or migrant (via drowning or fire) as happens in the UK.
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Realized too late into the video that I had to switch to original track
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But hey it's OK because Meta only want to record everything to train their AI, who cares if some of their friends use it to create CSAM material, their third-world country workers upload it to PornHub and the NSA secretly pipe all of that through their servers (or servers managed by MI5 in the case of Americans).
That functionality that is supposed to stop the recording if the light is covered is not perfect. You can find lots of "hacks" being offered online and apparently some of them work.
It's pretty obvious Meta did the bare minimum here. It could have made these much more conspicuous or decided, wisely, not to unleash this crap on society given the privacy and abuse concerns that clearly outweigh the benefits.
They could have made it much more effective - better optics, better microphones, better battery - but that would have made it extremely obvious.
This is their theory of power, that the selected few get access to a state of exception (but you can lose it at any time, so don't slip up).
Trump and oligarchs broadly have offered this franchise to their most loyal.
But! I'd argue it is not precisely hypocrisy, because they never believed in a rules-based order in the first place. They just see a system they can exploit.
break things has always been right there in black and white.
You don't need someone's consent to record in public, and if any of the employees objected to the publication of the recording, they could consult with an attorney about a portrait rights claim. Such a claim should be adjudicated by a court, not Facebook.
And let's be clear about the context here: these types of glasses are used by "content creators" to do street interviews that are published online, and they're also used to record all sorts of junk/nonsense ("pranks", pickup artist BS, etc.).
Meta doesn't seem to have a problem with content recorded with these glasses being posted on its platforms, even when it's objectionable, because it's literally everywhere. The only problem here, obviously, was that he was recording Meta employees.
This to me is wild. I use the glasses to film my kids and share it on private hard-drives with grandparents, that's it. It's wild to me that I can surreptitiously film someone on the street and publish it online for views, and the only recourse the person has, is to go to court? Seems insane.
Why does Hollywood require a release but Youtube does not?
EDIT: People are getting hung-up on my use case. But that's not the question posed here.
The hypocrisy is probably located around here:
> "I've been making satirical videos about all kinds of things for ten years: Gaza, Ukraine, refugees. Funny videos that push boundaries and provoke discussion. But I've never experienced a video being removed before.
What the law says about consent is irrelevant to the hypocrisy, and the videos are automatically uploaded to meta without anyone's consent anyway. You know this very well, there is no need to cosplay the smart devil's advocate.
(Oh, and they don't care about local solutions. Their sneakiness with Free Basics is clear. Can you blame them for Myanmar? I think you can, but it's also clear they want to supplant all the other social networks, like a system each individual country might come up with)
It does bother me being here on hacker news because it's a good aggregator but you get people standing up for their industry no matter what or flagging anything they disagree with
That doesn't work in a society with such extreme wealth inequality.
the legit uses don't need to be surreptitious.
How many billions of dollars have been wasted on the Metaverse?
What am I on trial for that I need to use the nuremberg defense?
I just can’t find the user experience different enough for me to feel like my western friends have any point to make about China
the west has a thin partyless corporate layer controlling all facets of life and your ability to participate in life compared to the government doing it directly
but its okay because if you don’t care about any of that you can talk about it (in person only because nobody will hear it for long elsewhere) and you won’t be disappeared? *unless your citizenship status is questioned
amusing cope
Sounds about right, though probably it will start with shipping drones. Amazon already has cameras on their drones, of course, so how long until they sell that capability to the highest bidder? And only the FAA can effectively regulate them, which means we are unlikely to see any rollback in the capability. I do not look forward to hearing these things buzzing over my house all day and knowing they are likely recording video of me.
I don't like it, but this is happening. And while we can frown on it socially, it would be self-defeating to ask our government to ban filming in public.
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Other than ad revenue, the company hasn't had any big wins. VR didn't take off. Metaverse didn't take off. AI models didn't take off. All multi-billion dollar ventures. Any other board would have sacked him by now.
it's because he controls the board by being the majority voting shareholder.
This is what happens when the gov't decides that it is legal for share classes with different voting rights. It ensures that you can sell equity to obtain money, without actually giving up control of said company at all. In theory, buyers would discount the sold equity due to this, but in practice, they don't (esp. if they're retail buyers).
Interesting consequence.
EDIT: Initially, this is nuts. How can I give "own" part of a company and not have a say. Sounds like a silent partner scheme. Looks like this a per state thing.
There is this ruling Business Roundtable v. SEC (1990) that strikes down an SEC rule that prevented corps from going public if they didn't follow "one-share-one-vote".
Because of the existence of Class B shares.
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The AI industry's mass theft of artwork is a crime that should be punished. The perpetrators, those directing this action, should lose everything. They should be left in perpetual debt as payment for their theft from the rest of society. This is just like 2008, when all of the oligarchy controlling the banks pillaged the rest of society, and got off with no real consequence. What we have is a few, probable psychopaths, injuring the masses for their own gain.
Try posting that on a high visibility story relating to the AI industries ethics. See what happens.
You will surely be down-voted - that's fine - [even though, for me, this opinion seems like a no-brainer, is it that crazy?] - (this comment might affect your account? not sure) -- The question, is it "disappeared."
Let me know.
Curious to know: does Flock do worse?
Huh? Not in my area. I've seen one pair of these in the wild and dozens of Flock cameras. Will that change? Maybe. For now, the _freak outs_ about Flock are absolutely justified.
Their footprints are also completely different. I can't avoid Flock cameras unless I want to change my path of travel and take back roads, which costs me time and money. Whereas I _might_ encounter someone wearing Meta glasses _if_ I happen to cross paths with them.
The government doing surveillance is much much worse.
And, ultimately, the issue here is that individuals are using these products in a bad way. Go to Japan and this shit is prolifically bad. Upskirt cameras on shoes and all this shit. Banning these glasses doesn't get rid of bad behaviors. Japan has been at the forefront of pervy invasive shit for decades.
But I understand your concern, the U.S. hardly qualifies as a democracy.
O.t.o.h, in the absent of stringent privacy laws (as the U.S. is an example), corporations are accountable just to stockholders.
Meta: 9 million glasses sold, source: https://roadtovr.com/meta-ray-ban-smart-glasses-sales-triple...
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They made a product, interviewer is using it as intended. He walked up to people, asked questions while using their product.
If they don't like it, walk away. Zero harassment.
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https://www.engadget.com/2227710/a-dollar2-sticker-let-me-by...
The $17b settlement they just agreed to said as much.
> Take control of your privacy with this easy-to-use LED and Camera Blocker
> Designed for users who value discretion, this accessory covers the video recording LED and optionally blocks the front-facing camera — perfect for content creators, streamers, or anyone in sensitive environments.
There is two parts, one to block the LED, and an option to al part to block the camera.
Some yahoo you don't know, posting a video of <thing happening> is useless without some degree of trust. So whether an established celeb on Youtube or actual media outlets, centralized reporting is going to become more of a thing.
When I was a kid, pre-internet, pre-camera, 'rumours' could be devastating, and were often wildly made up. Yet there was always this category of people who simple could not get through their head, that simply because someone hears something, it isn't therefore true.
This category of people still exists. And I think they'll be most hit by this.
Please watch this ad to enable 5 minutes of premium color vision!
It's increasingly necessary not to allow guests to bring their devices into your house or establishment. Somebody should go into business doing courtesy phones, where you can switch your sim/esim at the door to a dumbphone owned by the business.
When it comes to smart glasses, if they're prescription you had better have spares or you're going to be blind.
Canada's censorship solutions are no solution; you can't stop people from doing things by cracking down on civil liberties, people will just ignore you and do it anyway. Then you're stuck chasing anonymity, now your entire society is totalitarian and everything is rooted. In order to fight the totalitarian surveillance and tracking instituted because you wouldn't tell some pervert to take his robot glasses off, the electorate makes MechaHitler your PM, and it's now in control of your surveillance system.
It would be very funny if Skynet took over because people elected it, like Hitler did.
The US has a crazier takedown regime, letting companies do this. At least in Canada it goes through a court, it's about your personal likeness, and you can contest it.
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that light can be easily disabled
https://www.pcmag.com/news/modders-can-remove-the-recording-...
How long until someone differentiates themselves on the market by not having the light?
It's just that in the past, these were sold by janky companies selling them as spy/hidden cameras, not massive multinational data brokers like Meta.
For public spaces, at least where I am, there really isn't a legal expectation of privacy. I couldn't tell if someone was watching YouTube or filming me with their phone and I probably don't have any recourse anyway.
The simple solution is that you live with the small amount of awkwardness this generates.
That's...I'm not even sure how to respond to that. It would have a large direct and MASSIVE indirect chilling effect. The scale would be historic.
> it's about a choice of society that we want to live in. I think that's an interesting debate.
I fully agree with you! OP apparently doesn't, as he stated he does not care about half of the voices in that debate. That's what I'm taking issue with, not the proposal to break up Meta, which is, as you said, worth a debate!
Like it did with Ma Bell (the effective telephone monopoly)? No. I'm pretty sure it would have the direct opposite (open frontier) effect. The direct steps to break up a company are well telegraphed to the market.
The effect on economy I'm talking about is a functional one, ads and slop will continue to be served on your social network of choice. Second order like "bad vibes" will be forgotten in a month, a quarter at max and then hedge fund managers will move to something else.
I don't, which I why I didn't say that :)
In any case: they are different because they are in the face all day long, they are not a device some needs to start using to record; they are not operated by the user, in the sense that the user does not show any active indication of recording (e.g. they are not holding the camera); they are similar to regular glasses, making it hard to distinguish;
and they do not clear indicate if they are recording (and don't tell me that the LED is enough)
All things you mentioned can be easily prohibited on photo-sensitive area. Perhaps phone is harder, but it's still easily get prohibited without hurting anything. Glasses so far is a requirement, not that easy to prohibit in an area.
I don't think most people would recognize the meta glasses as something that could be recording. Especially if you cover or disable the recording LED light that is supposed to come on.
Lots places have laws like that. Maybe Meta shouldn't sell a device that makes it easy to do it anyway.
I realize the idea that rules exist even if you dislike the people they (momentarily) protect, even if those people have violated them, is a tough pill to swallow.
Edit: I do however agree with the sentiment.
Meta and it's employees seem to have thought of a few.
If that's actual law that's a bit surprising. In many EU countries there are journalistic exceptions (which may or may not apply in this specific case depending on local law)
> (you also can't have a street facing surveillance camera like in the US)
And same here. Usually the limit is that if you do it within GDPR household exemption then you cannot have it facing street, but if you do it on GDPR scope then you need to fulfill the GDPR requirements (e.g. posting notice, be ready to answer GDPR requests, perform balancing tests for recording etc.).
That's wild. Their solved crime rate must be in the gutter.
People also use smartphones to take upskirt photos without any shutter sound (arguably much easier than this guy physically bending over) but if someone was protesting phone cameras then doing that to people in public for some video wouldn't be some gotcha 'dunk'. At best it'd merely be controversial.
For a high effort pushback of Meta Glasses see the lenticular They Live vandalism of Meta's bus stop ad[1]. It hits the same goal this video author was trying to make, is actually clever and doesn't leave itself open to critique. Didn't require video removal on platforms to get the attention of articles either.
[1] https://hyperallergic.com/guerrilla-london-bus-ads-mock-kyli...
I've said this out loud several times while reading the comments defending Meta under this post.
It's so interesting to see so many weak or misdirecting justifications. It's almost as if people are here to attempt to control the narrative for financial reasons.
Poor Tracy in accounts probably doesnt give 2 hoots about meta glasses, shes just an accountant and maybe she doesnt even know they exist. But now shes getting harassed by idiots with cameras as she goes into the office because of something another department on the other side of the country did.
If you were doing it to Zuck himself or following round the head of the smart glasses department then it might be different, but harassing general employees of meta is no better than any other company. These are normal people no matter where they work.
They have been around for a while. At some point it just became trendy to hate on them, but people are completely oblivious to the fact that you are more easily recorded secretly with smartphones. In fact, most viral content you see where someone is being recorded without their consent is from a smartphone, I have yet to see any such content filmed with actual smart glasses.
The camera is useful for many things besides recording video, but now we can’t have nice things because people think everyone with glasses is trying to creep on them.
It’s just generic AI/tech bubble rage.
1. You’ve inferred that the reason the glasses exist is to enable people to harass other people. That’s a very odd conclusion. 2. Where’s the without them knowing? Meta literally designed the hardware so that you do know that you’re being filmed, unlike almost every other camera on the market. 3. You haven’t managed to separate the decisions and accountability of an individual from the tool that they use to execute those decisions. This is a strange way to look at the world. It places inherent moral values into inanimate objects.
Can't believe we have corporate bootlickers on HN of all places, I thought we still cared a tiny sliver about privacy? It all went away when we all gave away our private data to the AI companies, or what's the deal?
There are a very large contingent on HN who are against restrictions on corporate activities because they envision themselves as potential beneficiaries of a low regulation environment. Many of them also apparently view criticism itself as a restriction.
Or search "nerd reich" or "tech fascism" here to see the instantly flagged topics.
I urge you to see the output of this:
"news.ycombinator.com".split(".")[1]Fuck meta and fuck every single of their employee, you can't keep building hell and complain when people hit back
The fact is that if you stood outside any company office, with a highly visible camera crew, and then asked people who were passing by whether they worked at that company, most of them would probably feel quite apprehensive.
They would also be apprehensive if there was no camera at all.
So what exactly is the point that is being made in this video? People are apprehensive when put into situations with other people where their intentions are not clear and there are signs that the intentions might be malicious. Very informative…
This kind of false equivalency is nonsense. Facebook's been making clear attempts to reduce the obviousness of their camera glasses.
The problem isn't "I get apprehensive when I see a camera". The problem is "I don't want to be filmed without my knowledge".
Being filmed without your knowledge is happening all the time, these glasses haven’t moved the needle at all.
https://www.ray-ban.com/usa/ray-ban-meta-ai-glasses
I'm supposed to peer closely at peoples' sunglasses to try and figure out if that little black-on-black dot is a camera versus a design embellishment?
> Being filmed without your knowledge is happening all the time…
Murders happen all the time. That doesn't mean I need to be pro-murder.
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They've broken Android too, you can't even set it up with multiple languages. I use three daily - Dutch / English / American - and also a bit of German / French / Spanish / Italian here and there. Plus of course Latin because on my English side I'm a pretentious prick :-)
It should be enough that it is overwhelmingly likely.
I agree posting videos of people without their consent should be illegal, and I thought it was? Why does Hollywood require a release form but YouTube does not?
But that's regardless of whether it was filmed on Meta Glasses or a pocket camera.
Did you think they were making it up? https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0q33nvj0qpo
I couldn't conceive of a world in which I'd provide meta with video of my family. Or... anything, really.
Meta's pretty explicit about asking for opt-in and laying out exactly how your videos are used as part of onboarding.
As someone who trains AI for a living, the resultant fines are definitely not worth my data.
And, as we all know, tech companies and especially Meta never ever lie or trick you. They were never caught red handed sharing your information and violating your privacy despite claiming the opposite. They also are never fined because they are so careful, and the fines and consequences are always big enough to make them clean up their act.
Oh, wait, for a moment I forgot about the past two decades.
> the only recourse the person has, is to go to court
Well, typically, if you are in public, you can do just about anything with regards to recording. In private the laws are a bit different. Either way it is a barrier.
And unless Meta want's to pay me $1000's in fines (pretty sure my videos are worth less to them), sharing with Meta analytics is opt-in.
They've played fast and loose with copyrighted material for years, as shown in court records.
They company was founded on the principle of breaking privacy law, as highlighted in Zuckerberg's famous Dumb Fucks conversation.
Meta does what Meta can get away with and you really can't do anything about it without exceptionally deep pockets.
The publishing industry has more money than you do and they failed too.
https://www.anp.nl/blog/305/privacywetgeving-mag-je-filmen-o... is a decent article(in Dutch) about some of the complexities of Dutch privacy law when it comes to filming people in public spaces.
> if you are not targeting any individual in particular.
You could use Google, ChatGPT, Claude, etc. to educate yourself about the law before you post.
In contrast to what people think, Facebook IS NOT public infrastructure.
If Meta removes some content from Meta website, and you don't like that, it's a you problem, right?
They want protection from liability and also editorial control?
Regardless of the legal status, it seems clear that when massive companies refuse to allow the media they own to publish a dissenting opinion, we’re not headed towards a ~~more~~ democratic society.
Given all the sh*t that FB videos contain, I guess Meta's direction will soon be in jail.
They have to choose, safe harbor provisioning or responsibility for the content.
Since two decades they decide what goes up and what goes down, by means of their algorithms. And basically nobody complained so far (well, around 12 people on earth did - one of them is me).
It was completely okay for you since then. It was never a big topic. You were absolutely fine with that.
And now they just went one step further and removed something completely because they disliked it (well, who knows how often they already did, but it just never went public enough?!).
... and that's not even stupid. Because they know one thing that some of you didn't realize yet: You'll have forgotten it in a week as soon as public attention moves to next week's big bummer.
It's not even their fault that you misunderstand Facebook as a public space since two decades. It isn't. It never was. It's a commercial website. They let you upload your pointless vacation photos. That's basically it.
Note that the employees were not recognisable; their faces were blurred out.
it's perfectly legal to record but publish, especially in but not limited to a commercial context without explicit consent violates portrait rights under the GDPR in the EU. And I strongly suspect if you posted a video in which people explicitly object to being filmed and flag that on Facebook or other platforms it will get taken down.
Anyway, still not applicable in the Netherlands.
I cant just take a photo of a person or even car on the street and just share it online unless its clear the car or person is not the central point of the photo standing alone.
Only few exceptions on that
It's perfectly fine to take pictures of the Brandenburger Tor for example and post them online. There will likely be people in that picture but as they are not the main aspect of the image, it will be fine.
It's something different if you zoom in on somebody in that scene and he becomes the main point of the image. Then his personal rights overwhelm the right to document public spaces.
That's wild. In Ireland, there's no expectation of privacy in a public place, so you can record without issue.
we do indeed live in a low trust society as of now.
Since you used the most generic language possible, I guess me filming my nephew blowing on the cadles at his 8th birthday is harrassing and bullying and I should expect a punch in the face
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So tell me now, is a GoPro/Canon/Apple employee who doesn't consent to being the subject of a video taken with a GoPro/Canon/iPhone camera also a hypochrite?
This distinction does not matter if people feel unsafe regardless of "keeping it to yourself". It is still very creepy for a lot of people especially women and children. So what is the point of this "reminder"?
Of course the counter-argument is "makes money". That first of all doesn't make a good CEO (if you put no money into maintaining your site, for example), second of all it ignores all the fraud
In my mind, eventually it has the same fate as twitter? KTLO ops for printing money.
People who don't know these "Meta glasses" exist (and they shouldn't need to), would have no idea that the thing is even capable of recording.
It's subterfuge and while you could argue that this subterfuge was "unintentional", but imho that's mincing words, and also given that it's Meta, not entirely in good faith.
Can I assume that you have good enough eye sight that you don't need to wear glasses if you choose to? Because as somebody who is absolutely dependent on glasses as a serious aid, it leaves a very bad taste they are literally hiding the recording device in a disability aid.
I don't think making them glasses is "gross". It seems like a natural evolution of cameras to me. Even before Google Glass they were thrown around as an idea in scifi for decades. It's cool to me, but I understand public opinion isn't with me, and I'm fine with that.
Cameras exist. This is a camera. All cameras have the same problems this one. So why are we debating about this camera vs that camera rather than whether cameras should be allowed.
My perfectly normal camera does not stream shit to Meta servers or any other cloud. It's in fact fully offline. So, no.
Recording is one thing and sharing the same recording with a hostile foreign entity another.
Legally, many places have strict ban on publishing photos/recordings without consent, while photographing itself is generally allowed in public spaces.
This is before even getting into with issues of recordes d material being used as training material etc, which adds additional ethical and legal issues.
You may have a specific issue with the fact that the media goes through meta’s services, but that’s not the point that is being made in this thread.
All of the ethical and legal issues apply to all other cameras and camera footage too.
It is socially and in many cases legally forbidden to use cameras in many spaces.
The fact that the use of a camera is obvious is what makes it possible to sanction their inappropriate uses. With this piece of shit, it's not possible to tell at a glance that it is not being used, so we have to always assume that it's recording feature is being used.
The default usecase for it is socially and legally transgressive. That's what makes someone with a smartphone a normal person, while someone with these glasses an asshole.
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If I'm in a store or a coffee shop, and there's someone wearing these glasses in it, I'll do the exact same thing as I would to someone conspicuously filming me with a camera - I'll ask staff to make that person put them away, or throw them out. For the same reason, anyone with them is not welcome in my home, nor any other space I have control over, and any establishment that welcomes people wearing them will not get any business from me.
If I enter a public space I consider that anybody could watch me at any time, therefore I am always careful in public and always consider that walking out of my property is consenting to anybody else seeing me. Cameras are already everywhere.
Personally I dont see a difference between someone watching me on the street or recording me and watching it back. Its just no different to me.
If we aren't allowed to ever criticize anybody because they were just following orders, where would we be?
If someone holds their camera or a phone facing you directly you can guess they are filming you.
Normally looking glasses with a hidden camera is a Spywear from spy novels. The diode doesn't change much
If someone stands in front of you and interacts with you, firstly the camera in these glasses is not hidden and the glasses themselves are quite distinctive, and secondly, a light comes on exactly where you would be looking as you interact - next to their eyes.
On those two points, I’d argue that they’re exactly the same as phones or other cameras when it comes to being able to secretly record.
They’re nothing like glasses from spy novels, they’re extremely noticeable.
I would not call that "extremely noticeable". Perhaps it is extremely noticeable if you are familiar that a company makes normal looking glasses with cameras built in. But if you aren't, you might just assume that is some stylistic part of the glasses and not a tiny lens.
The biggest fine ever recorded for CCPA violations was against Disney, and it was for a paltry $2.75 million. Disney pulls in $2.75 million in revenue every ~10 mintues.
The potential fines for these types of laws are basically considered a cost of doing business if they ever need to be paid, and pale in comparison to the revenue earned by monetizing user data.
I asked what other enforcement mechanisms there could be since an added fine isn't really teeth-y enough unless it follows the EU model for privacy violations: initial fine and a requirement to change behaviour, no change in behaviour increases the fine up to 6% global revenue, and the fines will keep coming until the behaviour is changed.
Perhaps for the company you work at it might not be worth it but we are talking about one of the most profitable companies in the history of mankind.
Given the marginal value of my data to training anything (near zero), the lawsuit costs (even if I personally don't see any of the money) is far too large. I am not saying they definitely won't do it, they've bumbled into worse situations before but this feels like an obvious own goal if they try.
Under Article 139a of the Dutch Criminal Code, you are legally allowed to record any conversation in which you are a participant. You don't need to inform or obtain permission from another party.
There's no law that forbids recording people in public spaces. GDPR and portrait rights claims may be implicated, but if Facebook wants to take the position that it removed this man's videos as an adjudication of claims those recorded never brought themselves, it begs the question: why is it selling its glasses and allowing them to record in the Netherlands in the first place?
No I haven't, you should re-read what I actually wrote.
But you raise an interesting point: if this would be against the law in Germany, why is Facebook waiting for these glasses to be banned? It never should have made these available in Germany, and should be using technical means to ensure that they cannot function inside of Germany's borders.
So it's just more proof of the hypocrisy. Meta doesn't care about the privacy of the plebs.
If you have any respect, don't film other people or at least blur them.
If someone is motivated to secretly or inappropriately film, they will do so with whatever device they have. Having these glasses doesn’t tell you anything more about whether they’re that kind of person than the colour of their shirt.
Whether you will notice is entirely context and situation dependent. In some cases the glasses would be hard to notice, in others the use of a phone would be hard to notice.
So while your perspective that people who want to secretly film stuff should be unwelcome is quite reasonable, the test you apply to detect it is misdirected.