Meta serves one purpose: make as much money as they can from your personal data. Everything they do is in the interest of that. You say, “But WhatsApp is encrypted!” but they can control the encryption, they can see your chats if they choose to, and they collect contact information and other metadata. They know who you talk to and when, even if they may not always have the contents… and can get it if they want it. I’ve said it before, but using WhastsApp—if you have a choice in the matter—is stupid. Instagram looking through your photos and grabbing metadata, even doing location sharing, Facebook doing the same. Facebook is even stalking people off their website with tracking cookies capable of even gathering your medical data. Everything you, a friend, a friend of a friend, likes, posts, views, slows scrolling on as they go over it, searches for elsewhere, everything is a part of their algorithm to learn more from you to sell more from you. It’s so bad, people think their phones are always listening to them because the algorithm predicts their conversations. They might as well do it at this point, they’ve entered every other part of your digital life.
Talking about Meta’s glasses with a friend recently, she pointed out that “the purpose of a system is what it does,” and the Meta machine serves one purpose: collect more data to make more money. Why would they make a product that doesn’t serve that purpose? They’ve spied on every piece of people’s internet data, your entire digital life. Why wouldn’t they find more avenues for more data if it’s so profitable to gather more data?
And now I want to talk about the potentially always-on camera they want to stick on your stupid friends’ faces. Because Meta’s purpose is collecting data, and they continue to sell a product that can potentially record everything around you all the time. Do you really think Meta will stay away from their prime directive for this one product? I hate stooping to grade school insults, but are you really that stupid?
In This Article:
New Meta SpyWear
I came to post about this today because some of my friends who happen to also write about tech were discussing Meta’s new glasses. One was talking about how cool they are, and the other pointing out that, as a data collection company, Meta serves one purpose as does everything they make. These discussions came up because Meta has some new products out.
First, there’s an update to their previous “Meta Ray-Ban” glasses. It includes higher resolution video, up to 3K recording now, and 8 hours of battery life against the previous model’s 4 hours. Then there’s the new Oakley Meta Vanguard version, a $500 model that records 3K video and can sync with your fitness apps. It could be cool for POV sport videos and can create clips of your workouts when you sync with an app. Finally, there’s the biggest product, the “Meta Ray-Ban Display.” So clever with their names. This adds a small display to one of the lenses, which is reportedly hard to read without closing one of your eyes. It comes with a wrist band so users don’t even have to talk to their glasses anymore, they can more easily get information or record on the go. Eventually, it’ll even recognize your writing on flat surfaces, Meta says, though it can’t do that yet.
These all sound neat until you see they rely heavily on Meta’s AI. AI is, as many people now know, built atop massive amounts of data. Meta was perfect for this, as people have been giving them data—some of which incredibly personal—over the years. It’s hard to say whether or not Meta’s new glasses will give them even more data, and that’s the problem with any product Meta makes. If a company’s profitability comes from data collection, how can you trust they won’t collect data? For small companies, you might point out that betraying consumer trust would bankrupt them. But Meta is not a small company, and they’ve betrayed their users in appalling ways, with no real repercussions. So why would they follow the rules now?
You Can’t Trust Someone the Consequences Don’t Apply To
Meta, formerly just called “Facebook,” has never respected your privacy. To quote Mark Zuckerberg himself:
Mark Zuckerberg: “I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS [sic]”
[Friend]: What? How’d you manage that one?
Mark Zuckerberg: “People just submitted it”
Mark Zuckerberg: “I don’t know why.”
Mark Zuckerberg: “They ‘trust me'”
Mark Zuckerberg: “Dumb fucks”
That is the foundation that Meta was built atop of. It’s the attitude that made Meta’s ad suggestion algorithms so good people assume Meta is constantly spying on them all the time. And why shouldn’t you suspect that? Zuckerberg himself called people who trust him with their data “dumb fucks.”
Facebook, now Meta, has been caught multiple times abusing our data. There was the Cabridge Analytica scandal that lead to users’ data being collected for political purposes without their informed consent. The data was later used to help promote conservative candidates in 2016, including Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. It took until 2018 for Facebook to be caught, and was fined $5 billion by the FTC and £500,000 to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office. It took until 2022 to get a $725 million class-action settlement. Those payments have only started going out this year, 2025. Due to how our government deals with fines for corporations, they may not even have paid out much of what they owe, if they ever will.
And even if they do, Meta made $164,501,000,000 in revenue in 2024, with an operating margin of 42%. Yes. That’s 164.5 billion in revenue. $10 billion dollars would be a pittance. The fines and punishments for violating consumer and shareholder trust and breaking the law is so small there’s virtually no real consequences.
A few years later, they’d have another data collection scandal. Meta, then still Facebook, bought a VPN app Onavo. They made it free, but used it to collect data on their competitors. It may have lead to the purchase of WhatsApp. They did this by offering up a VPN, a tool that usually protects your privacy, and instead tracking data usage of their users. Apple removed the app from the App Store over privacy issues. Meta still hasn’t settled all the cases involving this breach of trust.
An investigation found that Meta was collecting information from medical records. One investigation into the medical data they collected found that despite Meta’s claims, personal information was not being filtered properly, including what a person was searching for. This especially put people in danger who receive healthcare certain extremists consider illegal now, such as abortions and gender-affirming care for transgender people. Meta can claim they don’t want your private healthcare data, but Apple’s privacy page for them on the App Store reveals that even their Threads app collects health data. Everywhere you look, Meta’s in your data, and it has repeatedly made it dangerously available to others. If you let Meta into your life, they’ll grab everything they can on you.
Meta is too big to fine, too big to punish. Because they’ll never face repercussions for their actions, they are, in effect, above any law or rule of morality. Profitability is seemingly their only north star. So why would you trust them if they say they’re going to prioritize profits over your privacy?
Even if it’s Not “Always-On”
Let’s say Meta’s data collection for these glasses isn’t “always-on.” Let’s say it only activates when the user tries to get data from it. Many AI companies train their future models on how well their previous models have acceptable responses. Therefore, there’s still a chance that they’ll be doing some form of data collection when a Meta glasses owner uses their device.
Now, think of think of the type of people you know who have integrated AI in their everyday life. I had a friend recently admit he used ChatGPT to do basic math for him. Even if he couldn’t do the math in his head, he could have used a calculator. Instead, he asked ChatGPT. The man’s job heavily involves math. Nothing makes your brain turn to mush quite like relying on AI for everything. When answers are in reach, your brain will offload the thinking it typically does to AI. Your skills will atrophy. This data analyst friend of mine couldn’t do simple math anymore, offloading even that to AI.
Those are the people who will be buying products like this. You know as well as I do they’ll use them a lot. Sometimes for something as simple as figuring out what 20% of a check is, potentially giving Meta data on where they are, who they’re with, and even what they ordered. Your data will not be safe around the people who will ask everything of AI, including situations that will involve you.
“I Forget They’re There”
Two women have shared their stories of uncomfortable situations with people wearing these eyeglasses. In a now-deleted Reddit post (with more discussion here), a woman reported her male OBGYN had worn his glasses during a pelvic exam. She was too taken aback by the entire situation to do anything about it in the moment, but was uncomfortable with the situation later, not knowing if he could have recorded her. In another scenario, shared to TikTok, a woman details how her esthetician had been wearing Meta Ray-Ban glasses during a Brazilian wax. The woman comforted her, with her waxer said that the glasses were not on and had actually ran out of battery, but why wear them over normal glasses? These devices show an LED while recording, but surely no one would figure out a way to turn those off, right?
People Are Bad Actors Too
All of this assumes that the people using these devices won’t be malicious. I’ve mostly placed blame on the companies that make money collecting data and the ways AI tricks you into relying on it for everything. But there’s something else to be concerned about: a lot of people are just shit.
Incognito Recording
The Meta Ray-Ban glasses will turn on a bright LED light when they’re recording. This is to make people feel safe around someone wearing Meta’s glasses, knowing that—as far as Meta says—they’re only being recorded when that light is on. It keeps people from being able to do creepy stealth recording of people.
Of course, as you’ve probably guessed, people have figured out ways around it so they could do creepy stealth recordings of people. There seem to be a lot of guys who have made videos and guides on how to disable this LED light.
People have found workarounds that include hacks and even just small usage changes that allow the Meta Ray-Ban glasses to record video without shining that light. It seems to be a popular topic in the community of people buying these. I can’t imagine why. It’s strange how many refer to it as “incognito mode,” given it’s the same name Google Chrome gives to private browsing windows. Why would they associate the two, I wonder?
Facial Recognition Hacks
You can ask Meta AI, “What is this,” to have it identify things in your view. It might tell you that there is a person in front of you, potentially even describe what they’re wearing, but it won’t tell you who they are. Even if you ask, “Who is this,” it won’t respond. That’s great! Of course, Meta has access to photos we’ve uploaded and can almost certainly figure out who all of us are, but they won’t make that data available.
Don’t worry, creeps, someone else did!
Researchers integrated facial recognition software in the first generation Meta Ray-Ban glasses to quickly dox anyone they see. They were able to not only use facial recognition, but then take associated names and find other information, from social security numbers to addresses. Look at someone and you can dox them. Meta made the perfect platform for these bad actors, of course they’re going to abuse it.
Take Them Off. Period.
Don’t meet up with me at the bar with these things on. I will nicely ask you to take them off, then leave if you refuse to do so. I might even smash them if you repeatedly violate my privacy with them after I’ve asked more nicely. Who needs friends who don’t respect simple boundaries, anyway?
Feel free to make sure your friends know they don’t have your consent to be in their Meta videos. Ostracizing the people who think these things are okay to wear in public may be the best way to keep technology like this from becoming part of our daily lives. No one should walk around with surveillance and doxing devices on their faces, and you have the right to ask people not to use such potentially dangerous devices around you.
Although, smashing them is still damage to property, so perhaps cut interactions off before it gets to that point, okay? I don’t advocate damaging property, even if it is the property of assholes.
Sources:
- Auzinea Bacon, CNN Business
- Josh Constine, TechCrunch
- Cheyenne L Hunt, Instagram
- Sabine Joseph, The Mary Sue
- John Koetsier, Forbes
- Luis Prada, Vice
- Laura Raphael, Esquire
- Jonathan Vanian, CNBC
- “Facebook—Cambridge Analytica data scandal,” Wikipedia