Credit: Credit: René Ramos/Lifehacker/Dimitri Otis/Stone, Frazao Studio Latino/E+ via Getty Images
In a recent story posted on Instagram, Instagram head Adam Mosseri revealed the social media platform is banning smart glasses videos where people are being harassed and exploited for views.
“If you’re posting content that is taking advantage of people and harassing them, like a lot of these pickup line kind of videos that we’ve heard of and seen, then we’re going to take the content down,” Mosseri said. “We don’t want people to be surreptitiously taking videos of other people and harassing them and then posting them on our platform. So we’re trying to fight that every way we can.”
Hidden camera prank videos and “pickup” type videos are obviously not new, but the easy availability of camera glasses has led to a spike in this kind of content, with videos of men trying to pick up women, pranking retail workers, and other pranks appearing more frequently across all video-sharing services.
Business Insider reported that Meta recently pulled two accounts with over a million followers for posting “pickup artist” videos, where women who may not have known they were being filmed have their videos posted online, leading to harassment. A Meta spokesperson confirmed that the accounts were nuked in accordance with the company’s existing bullying and harassment policy.
Meta’s official policy on bullying states “We remove content that’s meant to degrade or shame, including, for example, claims about someone’s sexual activity,” and lists a number of specific examples like, “severe sexualized commentary” and “calls for, or statements of intent to engage in, bullying and/or harassment.” But there’s a lot of gray area. Videos featuring vaguely aggressive acts directed at strangers apparently aren’t in violation of Meta’s standards, for instance. Neither is a video like the one below, but I’d feel pretty harassed if I were that doctor.
There isn’t a reliable way to automate harassment detection because so much of what constitutes harassment comes down to intent and context. This leaves enforcement up to users who can flag videos and/or victims, who are often unaware their image is being spread online until it’s too late to put the toothpaste back in the tube.
The complicated ethics of “pervert glasses”
The backlash over camera-equipped smart glasses is definitely growing, whether its apps designed to suss them out in public, condemnation from pop stars, or outright bans on smart glasses in some places.
What do you think so far?
As a privacy safeguard, Meta’s glasses have a front-facing light that comes on when video is being taken or a picture is being snapped, but the light has been an ongoing issue since the glasses launched. Disabling it has turned into an ongoing game of cat-and-mouse: Meta smart glasses’ cameras won’t work if the light is covered, but hackers found ways to modify the hardware itself, leading Meta to release a mandatory update that will physically disable any glasses if a user tampers with the indicator. Creeps are pretty ingenious, so I expect further workarounds.
Whether they have lights or not, hidden cameras are generally legal to use in public places in the U.S. (with a few exceptions), and it’s not necessarily against the law to film yourself trying to pick someone up, then post the footage online so weirdos can comment, either.
How to spot hidden cameras in glasses
Unless you’re really eagle-eyed, it’s tough to spot someone with a hacked pair of glasses with no recording indicator light, but it’s not impossible. Here are a few things to look for:
The rivet: Most standard glasses have decoration of some kind to cover the glasses’ hinge. On Meta Ray-Bans and most other camera glasses, they’re round and slightly oversized with a glass inner circle.
Thick frames: While the technology is getting smaller, camera equipped glasses tend to have thicker frames to hide the gear.
The tap: There’s two ways to trigger an off-the-shelf pair of Meta smart glasses, saying “Hey, Meta, take video” or tapping the side of the glasses.
Head movement: Meta glasses have a pretty wide lens, so they don’t require a ton of movement to capture a scene, but still, if someone is moving their head when they could just be moving their eyes, they might be trying to keep something in frame.
All that said, despite the growing popularity of the nickname “pervert glasses,” camera-equipped smart glasses have a variety of legitimate uses and I assume the vast majority of wearers want a quick way to upload content to Instagram, answer texts, or take a picture without having to pull out their phones, so just spotting the glasses in the wild doesn’t mean you’ve spotted a creeper. Usually.