More than ten years ago, Google showed off a pair of smart glasses called Google Glass, which sparked a huge ethical debate about wearables being used to secretly film people without their permission.
At that time, the disgrace was engraved with the derogatory neologism “glasshole”, meaning the wearer of Google Glass who was accused of having little regard for the privacy of those around him.
Eternity that appears later, Meta tried to revive the idea with its Ray-Ban Meta glasses. While perhaps a significant technological leap over Google’s early forays, the debate seems to have remained the same.
Case in point, how Daily Dot reports, a New York subway rider has accused a woman of breaking his Meta smart glasses.
“She just broke my Meta glasses,” said the TikTok user, who goes by eth8n, in a video that has since garnered millions of views.
“You’re going to be internet famous!” I shouted to her from the window after getting off the train. The accused woman, however, looked back at him completely unperturbed, as if to say that he should have come.
“I was making funny noises people were honestly crying laughing at it,” he claimed in the caption of a follow-up video. “She was the only upset person. I never spoke to her, I even let her sit when she got on the train at 42nd street, and I stood.”
But instead of coming to his support, the internet wholeheartedly rallied behind the alleged author, celebrating the woman as a folk hero — perfectly highlighting how the public feels about gadgets like Meta’s smart glasses.
“Well, people are tired of being filmed by strangers,” commented one user.
“The fact that no one else on the train is defending him is telling,” wrote another.
“She’s perfect,” gushed another. “I hope you called him a dork for wearing them before you broke them.”
Others accused the man of fabricating details of the incident.
“‘People were crying laughing’ — I’ve never heard a less plausible NYC subway story,” wrote one user.
While Meta built in a small LED light in the front of its glasses to indicate when it is recording a video, it can easily be covered with a small piece of tape, making it trivially easy to spy on strangers in public without their knowledge or consent. How Daily Dot he points out, people are even selling stickers for this specific purpose.
Meanwhile, eth8n claims he “filed a claim with the police and it’s a felony charge.”
“What she did was assault, she can be arrested for this if I see her again and I felt her,” he wrote.
But it remains to be seen if the mystery woman will face any consequences for breaking his glasses – or if the adoring public will turn on her.
More on Meta’s glasses: Meta’s Disastrous Smart Glasses Demo Is Even Worse Than We Thought