Meta Moves to Ban Misuse of Its AI‑Enabled ‘Pervert Glasses’

Meta’s sleek, camera‑laden smart glasses have become a lightning rod in just a few short months. What was marketed as a “privacy‑first” wearable quickly turned into a tool for some rather unsavory characters—pickup‑artist influencers, pranksters, and other opportunists who love filming unsuspecting strangers.

It isn’t hard to see why. The glasses hide tiny lenses behind fashionable frames, making it almost impossible for a passerby to know they’re being recorded. Combine that with AI that can identify faces and even suggest conversation starters, and you have a recipe that some people have abused for cheap thrills and, frankly, harassment.

When the backlash reached a fever pitch—people leaving the glasses at home, public figures publicly denouncing them—Meta finally seemed to sit up and take notice. In an Instagram story, Adam Mosseri, head of the platform, said the company would start removing any content that shows the glasses being used to harass or non‑consensually film others.

“If you’re posting content that is taking advantage of people and harassing them… we’re going to take the content down,” Mosseri explained. “We don’t want people surreptitiously taking videos of other people and then posting them on our platform.”

Business Insider reports that two Instagram accounts tied to well‑known pickup‑artist crews have already been disabled, with a Meta spokesperson confirming the bans were for harassing videos shot with the glasses.

Meta’s own guidelines are a mixed bag of common‑sense advice and legal boilerplate. The company urges users to turn off the glasses in “sensitive spaces” like doctors’ offices, locker rooms, schools, or places of worship, and to obey the law when it comes to privacy and pin‑code protection.

What’s missing, however, is a concrete enforcement plan. Mosseri’s promise to “take the content down” is vague, and Meta did not answer questions about how it will police the uploads or prevent the same behavior from resurfacing under different usernames.

Adding fuel to the fire, a recent Wired investigation uncovered that Meta had quietly slipped unreleased facial‑recognition software into the glasses—a feature the company initially denied. Even CTO Andrew “Boz” Bosworth later hinted at it in an interview, sparking fresh concerns over surveillance.

Public sentiment is clearly turning sour. Pop star Lorde took a jab at the eyewear during a concert, saying, “You don’t know if someone’s wearing sunglasses, or if they’re wearing those fed‑up glasses… for the record, f the glasses! Don’t get the glasses — not sexy.”

Whether Meta’s crackdown will be enough to stem the tide of misuse remains to be seen. For now, the company appears to be scrambling to protect its brand and reassure users that it won’t stand idly by while its “innovative” glasses become a covert spying tool.