Meta just created a moderation nightmare for its smart glasses
Meta is facing backlash over its smart glasses, which are being used by some to harass strangers and film content without consent. In response, the company is banning certain types of harassing content filmed with the glasses from its platforms like Instagram.
Why it matters
This illustrates the ongoing struggle between tech companies, product privacy, and the moderation of user-generated content in public spaces.
Meta’s smart glasses have been a PR headache for the company. Public backlash has been swift, and fierce; people are concerned about the erosion of privacy and expansion of surveillance. Some especially bad actors are using the glasses to film themselves “pranking” random strangers. Women have become unsuspecting social media content for men filming themselves hitting on them without their knowledge. When your product is being referred to as “pervert glasses,” you have a problem on your hands.
On Thursday, Business Insider reported that Meta was taking the fairly extraordinary step of banning some content filmed with Meta glasses from the company’s own platform. Instagram head Adam Mosseri recently said that content “taking advantage of people and harassing them, like a lot of these pickup line kind of videos,” would be removed from Instagram.
Get smarter about the news
Sign up free for a feed built around what you actually care about, Dive Deeper research on any story, and the full text of every article.
Create free accountAlready have an account? Sign in