Influencers face backlash over Meta 'pervert glasses' content

Markoff 42 points 43 comments August 10, 2026
www.theguardian.com · View on Hacker News

Discussion Highlights (11 comments)

skor

what you put in, you get out https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/juliareinstein/facemash

tjpnz

Epstein Glasses is also a good name for them. Glasses for people who don't do consent.

RobMurray

Can we maybe blame the people who use them irresponsibly instead of blaming the technology? These glasses have been a life changer for so many visually impaired people.

concinds

I wish regulators who failed to ban these things got even half of the backlash. It's not an individual issue.

ifwinterco

Either Mark Zuckerberg is playing an elaborate practical joke on everyone, or this is further proof that the West Coast tech scene has become such a bubble people have lost all sense of how ordinary people think. There is just no way this was going to fly in 2026 given high and increasing negative sentiment globally towards tech, and I'm not sure what made them think otherwise

Symbiote

I think a small speaker should announce, in the local language, "recording in progress" when these are used.

Planktonne

Good. These glasses are intended for anti-social and predatory uses, with a paper-thin pretence over the top that Meta doesn't understand their market. A healthy society should push back against things like this.

rdmuser

Our idea of a public/private privacy division where private recording is discouraged and public is a free for all really feels dated. I know personally I'd love to see a private/local/wide distribution division or something like that where simply going outside to get groceries or whatever doesn't count as consent to be plastered across the net. There are real harms to being a public figure and the net rarely understands context. I do have one note on all this though. I think there are some real benefits to being able to record people in public re corruption, criminality etc so I don't think any changes should be about public recording but about distribution instead.

baaron

I wonder if something like the EURion constellation could be worn to disable recording by unwanted parties.

scotty79

I'd love to have glasses that are interface for AI. Mics pointed down towards mouth from the bottom of the front glasses rim. Speakers near the ears. Cameras optional. Display optional, possibly as a simple projector that reflect the image from the concave glass surface of prescription glasses. Long term power and communication through thin cable to battery pack in a holster somewhere on the body to make the frames light and wearable all day.

marcuskane2

And just like the panic over cell phones, this too shall pass. Maybe half of HN is too young to remember (or old enough to have forgotten?) but when cell phones with cameras were becoming mainstream, there was media panic over them too - people could be discretely filming in bathrooms, locker rooms, etc. There were even a few high-profile salacious stories where people did use their phones to film inappropriately. And then we collectively decided that having cameras with us was generally beneficial and rarely harmful, and people realized that creeps who wanted to hide hidden cameras could already do so, and we all kinda moved on with our lives. I can't leave my house without being on a dozen Ring cameras, Flock cameras and probably a handful of satellites, along with devices tracking Bluetooth and WiFi IDs every time I enter a store or a cop car drives by or having my license plate scanned by passing tow trucks. Drawing the line at glasses seems pretty arbitrary.

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