16 ms·

Meta in row after workers who saw smart glasses users having sex lose jobs

526 points by gorbachev 5mo ago

theowsmnsn 5mo ago
Meta is so evil
- 0x1ceb00da 5mo ago
  Evil is the current meta
gorbachev 5mo ago
Meta cancels the contract with the outsourcing company they contracted to classify smart glasses content after employees at the company whistleblow about serious privacy issues with the content they were paid to classify.
- everdrive 5mo ago
  Sounds about right. If you know someone who uses these smart glasses, it's important not to tolerate them whatsoever. Don't speak with them, interact with them. I wouldn't even recommend being in their presence.
  - jofzar 5mo ago
    There's a name for these people, glassholes
    - OutOfHere 5mo ago
      [flagged]
      - wat10000 5mo ago
        I could see an argument being made for smart glasses that keep everything local. But smart glasses that send everything to The Cloud? Burn them all. Especially if they're from fricken' Meta.
      - voidUpdate 5mo ago
        What are the reasonable and legitimate uses of smart glasses with cameras in that can record without the subject being aware?
        OutOfHere 5mo ago
        I already noted it in the answer. If a person feels at risk, or even if they're on vacation, they have a right to record something/everything and someone/everyone around them in public, just as they could with a phone. Do you think you will know if someone has their phone in their pocket or in a holster, and is turned on and recording? You will never know. There are dozens if not hundreds of cameras pointed at the street that record people every time they go out in public in any urban setting.
        Forgeties79 5mo ago
        > Or are you new to how phones work? Ease off the gas
        voidUpdate 5mo ago
        If someone is recording you on video with a smartphone, you are generally aware of it, because it has to be pointed at you. Sure, you have a right to record people in public, there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in a public place, but I would quite like to know if you are recording me. I'm also not terribly worried about people recording me having sex or being naked in public without my knowledge...
        pjc50 5mo ago
        > they have a right to record something/everything and someone/everyone around them in public Subject to local law. It's an offence to make indecent images of children, for example. However, it is absolutely not the case that Meta has a right to that data, as a data controller under GDPR. > feels at risk This is a red flag phrase: it's a justification that people whip out for all sorts of unjustified things up to and including murder.
        basisword 5mo ago
        >> even if they're on vacation, they have a right to record something/everything and someone/everyone around them in public Big assumption here that the place you're on vacation doesn't have different laws. You may have absolutely no right to record "everything and everyone" around you.
      - dgellow 5mo ago
        So happy to live in Germany. I couldn’t care less if your gadget can be useful in some cases. I don’t want it close to me
        deleted 5mo ago
        [deleted]
      - dataflow 5mo ago
        > Smartglasses have reasonabl eand legitimate uses. People also use bodycams that record continuously, such as for legal reasons. People have a right to record in public, such as if they feel at risk. Are you going to go after car cameras next? None of those default to sharing your recording with anyone else, let alone with no practical way to opt out.
      - monegator 5mo ago
        dash cams are local and pointing at the road, not everywhere. body cams are local and mostly used by law enforcement to guarantee they are not abusing their power. glassholes are connected to the cloud. you may have the right to record on public space, i have the right to remain anonymous in the crowd and not be constatly targeted by an advertisement company. Even if 1% of the corner cases are legit uses (blind people having the glasses describe the world around them is fantastic.) 99% of the people using them are assholes that deserve to be put in the ground and the glasses smashed.
        wolvoleo 5mo ago
        Yes and those blind people are easily recognised and I'm sure there will be a lot more understanding of them using such products.
      - everdrive 5mo ago
        >I don't think that's fair. Smartglasses have legitimate purposes. I think that's true in principle, but in practice there are going to be two kinds of smart glasses users; extraordinarily annoying kids or you adults acting annoying in public so they can post videos to social media, and then normal people who have no clear sense for how much they're violating the privacy of those around them, and just like cool tech. Very, very few users are going to be an interesting or valid use case -- eg: someone who is using them to assist with a disability, or for research, or something. Even most dash cams don't stream to Meta -- they just record the last _n_ hours and you need to know to save off the video if you're in an crash / incident. In other words, most of the time no privacy is violated, and the only potential privacy violation occurs during an incident. Even policy body cams, which I wholeheartedly support, have some pretty strong downsides: currently, if you're at the end of your rope, having the worst day of your life, and in your dishevelment turn a speeding ticket into a BATLEO, you're famous forever for being a lunatic. Maybe the rest of the time you're a good person, and you can learn from this and move on. Except now you have a permanent albatross around your neck. This is a secondary penalty that the justice system did not intend, and has no answer for.
        randallsquared 5mo ago
        > Very, very few users are going to be an interesting or valid use case You then list a mere two categories. Would your argument have been similar in 2008 if told that in ten years, everyone in the economic first world would be carrying multiple cameras including a dedicated "selfie" camera at all times?
        everdrive 5mo ago
        I'm not sure I understand the point about a dedicate "selfie" camera, however I think we're conflating "percentage of users" with "varieties of use cases." I think there could be quite a cornucopia of potential use cases, but I think per capita most people will not actually be making use of these. As other commenters have pointed out, I'd be a lot more tolerant if the data were not constantly piped to Meta.
      - steve_adams_86 5mo ago
        I can't deprive someone of their right to use them, but I can refuse to interact with someone who's wearing them. This seems like a fair natural consequence. Feel free to wear them, but I won't speak to you when you do.
      - jcgrillo 5mo ago
        If you walk up to me and shove a camera in my face I'll get very loud and very angry with you very quickly. That's kind of paradoxical, if you intended the camera to make you feel safer. I don't think I'm in the minority.
      - 1718627440 5mo ago
        > People have a right to record in public I do not want to live in such a dystopian country. No this right shouldn't exist and I'm glad it doesn't in my country. > If none of this makes sense to you, wait till standalone cameras become much smaller to where they become a smartbutton -- what will you do then? Why are you against killing? Wait till you don't need to hit them but can accelerate metal pieces at them -- what will you do then? > Any American who has any opposition to public recording is fighting the First Amendment and doesn't even deserve to be an American. Anyone who is against X deserves not to be protected by law. "First they came for the communists..."
        randallsquared 5mo ago
        > No this right shouldn't exist and I'm glad it doesn't in my country. Smartphones are illegal in your country? I am skeptical. The right to record is the right to remember.
        1718627440 5mo ago
        Recording people without consent is illegal.
        evenhash 5mo ago
        That seems backwards to me. In your country, if you were to record someone committing a crime against you in public, you’re the one who will go to jail? Is the law applied equally, so that businesses, police officers, and government agencies are also not allowed to record in public?
      - JohnFen 5mo ago
        > It is not up to you to deprive anyone their right to use them. I don't see anyone saying that people don't have the right to use them. I see people saying that they have the right to avoid being anywhere near the people who use them and to disapprove of those people. Which is just as much of a right as the right to wear spy glasses.
        AlecSchueler 5mo ago
        I'm glad to see opinion seems to be swaying back in this direction. It was only a few months ago that the general sentiment seemed to be "times are different than the glasshole days, it's fine now."
        projektfu 5mo ago
        It is unfortunate that a large number of users here are not hackers, not even in an idealistic philosophical sense, and will betray the public good for their own short-term gain.
      - mulr00ney 5mo ago
        >It is not up to you to deprive anyone their right to use them. Why is it a right? >Are you going to go after car cameras next? No. A car cannot follow me into a building very easily. It cannot turn as quickly as a human head. >Any American who has any opposition to public recording is violating the First Amendment and doesn't even deserve to be an American. lmao
        2ndorderthought 5mo ago
        I have no idea why you are downvoted. I do not want my employees recording their day job and selling it, or the creepy dude next to me in the bathroom filming my goods or the log jam flying out of my butt so meta can try to sell me pepto. I also don't want that one time I did something minor illegal like jay walking get auto fed into palantir so they can ship me to the latest internment camp. Or someone stealing my biometrics by just walking past me.
        mulr00ney 5mo ago
        Downvoted because I was flippant about the American comment (because it was _insane_)
      - 2ndorderthought 5mo ago
        I think the only legitimate use is for spies? And by commoditizing them it makes spies slightly less obvious? Oh blind people too. That one makes sense.
  - arowthway 5mo ago
    Also make sure to avoid people with smartphones and places with video surveilence.
    - HumblyTossed 5mo ago
      Is this an honest argument? Surely you can think of how glasses might be ... in a different league than the two items you mention?
      - db48x 5mo ago
        Not meaningfully. Anyone holding a smartphone might be recording you. You’d better avoid them if you don’t want to be recorded.
        azan_ 5mo ago
        Someone has to hold smartphone and point it at you.
        bredren 5mo ago
        This line makes a valid point. People record strangers all the time. In an obvious way or trying to be sneaky. Just because you don’t notice it doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. However, this is still a different thing than smart glasses which can further be segmented into who designed the smart glasses.
        NBJack 5mo ago
        Most people don't run around holding out their smartphone directly in front of them. It has to be pointed at the subject, and tends to be obvious. Smart glasses, however, are always aimed at whatever the wearer is looking at. They may or may not be recording (note the reports of people hiding the LED indicators), and at a fair distance could easily be mistaken for a normal pair. The general populace is much more likely to notice the former recording rather than the latter.
        recursive 5mo ago
  - divan 5mo ago
    [flagged]
    - HotGarbage 5mo ago
      [flagged]
      - inquirerGeneral 5mo ago
        [dead]
    - jmholla 5mo ago
      You're aware of the privacy implications but think people talking about avoiding people who use them are proposing dumb arguments? I don't follow your logic.
      - divan 5mo ago
        How does not talking to people will solve privacy problems of the new technology? Are you assuming that Meta will see that you ignored your coworker with smart glasses and shut down the project, along with Apple and other smart-glasses manufacturers? I'd love to follow your logic, if you can't follow mine.
        jmholla 5mo ago
        Ostracization has worked before. And ostracization can lead to decreased sales, which they will definitely notice. If engaging with people to talk about privacy implications involves sacrificing your privacy, I feel that it is reasonable approach. It's like if I had to be punched by someone to talk to them about why them punching people all the time wasn't alright, then I'd find it very reasonable to just not associate with that person. I think you're outlining a relationship with people who actually want to actively engage in these concerns in a responsible manner, and these platforms have definitely demonstrated the opposite and a willingness to use that engagement to inflict the very behavior you want to moderate.
  - elevation 5mo ago
    > I wouldn't even recommend being in their presence. Great! Now do people with smart TVs and people with smart phones
    - HotGarbage 5mo ago
      [flagged]
    - intended 5mo ago
      Don’t we already hate the invasive ad tech industry? Aren’t there already posts and articles on how to ensure that TVs don’t farm information from us?
    - AlexandrB 5mo ago
      I'll grant you smartphones, but smart TVs usually don't have cameras/microphones. The problem with smart glasses is that they constantly capture video and upload it to $VENDOR like in this case.
      - elevation 5mo ago
        > smart TVs usually don't have cameras/microphones Friends in industry who are analyzing consumer smart TV sensor data at scale tell me otherwise.
    - deleted 5mo ago
      [deleted]
  - Aaronstotle 5mo ago
    I want to get the Oakley Meta ones so I can record bike rides easier, should I not be tolerated?
    - HotGarbage 5mo ago
      [flagged]
      - ortusdux 5mo ago
        https://gopro.com/en/us/news/ai-training-program https://gopro.com/en/us/news/ai-training-program
        magicalist 5mo ago
        [dead]
      - prepend 5mo ago
        How is a GoPro better than wearing these glasses while cycling?
        hilariously 5mo ago
        It's a big obvious doofus camera vs a tiny spy camera, pretty simple!
        dylan604 5mo ago
        People recognize GoPro cameras for what they are. They are easily understood as a camera. Glasshole devices are not as easily recognizable and people honestly may not realize they are being recorded especially when the glasshole does not inform everyone they are being recorded. Now, for your "while cycling" qualifier, why does it matter? Again, if you stop to talk to people while recording and it is not obvious you are recording, you're a glasshole. Personally, I have no experience with camera quality from the devices, but I do know what a GoPro can do. My gut instinct is that the GoPro will be superior footage.
  - paulddraper 5mo ago
    Are GoPros acceptable? I went to the beach, jet skiing. One of the guys had Meta glasses. I liked the footage.
    - everdrive 5mo ago
      >I liked the footage. So did the Meta's LLM training model as well as the contractor across the globe reviewing your footage.
    - red_admiral 5mo ago
      The problem is there's places where you'd get noticed and probably removed for filming with a gopro, or even a smartphone. My local "wellness center" and pools have you deposit your smartphone before you exit the changing area into the showers. The danger with creep glasses is that many people don't know what they are, they can be used with the LED disabled so they're perfect for filming people without their knowledge, and "these are prescription glasses" has a good chance of working. In a place with a "no recording devices" policy, "could you put that gopro away" has wide social acceptance/support, "take those glasses off" less so.
      - paulddraper 5mo ago
        I get the problem. I don't think ostracizing users of Meta Glasses (or Google Glass before that) is the answer. But I get the problems of hidden cameras.
    - cosmicgadget 5mo ago
      People with GoPros are more likely to send, resulting in entertainment value.
- getnormality 5mo ago
  Well, yeah. If I went straight to the press to trash the reputation of my client's product, rather than communicating internally first to help them proactively address the issues, I would expect to get fired. Not that I am remotely interested in defending Meta, or optimistic that they would proactively address privacy issues. But I don't feel that sympathetic to the outsourcing company here either. I don't know what happened behind the scenes. I'm just going off what is said and not said in the article. If I were whistleblowing about something like this, I would take pains to describe what measures I took internally before going public. I didn't see any of that here. EDIT: Look, to be clear, I think it's bad that naive or uninformed people are buying video recorders from Meta and unintentionally having their private lives intruded on by a company that, based on its history, clearly can't be trusted to be a helpful, transparent partner to customers on privacy. I think it's good that the media is giving people a reminder of this. I think it's good that the sources said something, even though the consequences they suffered seem inevitable. But to me, there is nothing essentially new to be learned here, and I don't know what can or should be done to improve the situation. I think for now, the best thing for people to do is not buy Meta hardware if they have any desire for privacy. Maybe there are laws that could help, but what should be in the laws exactly? It's not obvious to me what would work. I suspect that some of the reason people buy these products is for data capture, and that will sometimes lead to sensitive stuff being recorded. What should the rules be around this and who should decide? Personally I don't know.
  - OutOfHere 5mo ago
    Proactively address the issues? Are you kidding me? This is not an issue that just happened to slip by; it is 100% by design. You're fooling no one.
    - getnormality 5mo ago
      What specifically do you mean? It is by design that smart glasses see the things happening in front of their users? Yes, it is. That is why people buy them.
      - 5mo ago
- ignoramous 5mo ago
  > the content they were paid to classify A Kenyan workers' organisation alleges Meta's decision was caused by the staff speaking out. Meta says it's because Sama did not meet its standards, a criticism Sama rejects ...
- SlinkyOnStairs 5mo ago
  "Fun" bonus fact: This isn't the first time Sama (the outsourcing company) has had these problems. OpenAI had them classify CSAM, so Sama fired them as a client back in 2022. https://time.com/6247678/openai-chatgpt-kenya-workers/ https://time.com/6247678/openai-chatgpt-kenya-workers/ We're 4 years on, 3 years since that report broke. Not a single thing has improved about how tech companies operate.
  - cyanydeez 5mo ago
    Isn't it more that tech companies are just more high profile and integral to political and social landscape than older companies; but reviewing the current political zeitgeist, they're in lockstep to what some, if not all, would just call fascism?
    - inquirerGeneral 5mo ago
      [dead]
    - intended 5mo ago
      Yes and no. Safety and user pain is a part of tech which seems largely ignored, even on sites like HN. I really have no idea why this ignorance prevails; commenters seem to genuinely be unaware of what goes on in Trust and Safety processes. I mean, most users would complain about content moderation, but their experience would be miles ahead of what most of humanity enjoys when it comes to responsiveness. I believe this lack of knowledge, examples, and case history is causing a blind spot in tech centric conversations when it comes to the causes of the Techlash. Unfortunately this backlash is also the perfect cover for authoritarian government action - they come across as responsive to voters while also reigning in firms that are more responsive to American citizens and government officers than their own.
    - 2ndorderthought 5mo ago
      They are literal defense and offense contractors. They hang out at the Pentagon. They sell political data to sway elections. They give gifts to leaders for favors. It is technofacism.
- stackghost 5mo ago
  Mark Zuckerberg and disrespect for user privacy. Name a more iconic duo.
- Frieren 5mo ago
  Whistleblower protection is key for any working society. Only dictatorships and oligarchies protect criminals while shaming whistleblowers. I do not care which country the outsourcing company is in. When criminals go global, protection whistleblowers should go global too.
letmetweakit 5mo ago
Unfortunately this news will have no impact, neither on customer behavior, neither on policy, neither on Meta's behavior.
3748595995 5mo ago
[flagged]
- monegator 5mo ago
  [flagged]
HarHarVeryFunny 5mo ago
Not sure which is worse here - that Meta are recording video from customers' smart glasses, or that they are firing people who talk about it.
- OutOfHere 5mo ago
  Everything having to do with Meta, starting with its very name, has been evil from the start.
  - frm88 5mo ago
    Did you know that after being an angel investor in facebook, Peter Thiel personally mentored Zuckerberg for couple of years? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TP7Z_Eqxhxk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TP7Z_Eqxhxk
- embedding-shape 5mo ago
  The latter, as they can't even claim to have done so by accident, or "it was just bug".
- SV_BubbleTime 5mo ago
  Can I squeeze in the just a teeny tiny bit of… why the hell are you wearing an internet camera on you while naked and/or having sex? … although I really extend that to why are you wearing an internet connected camera that is obviously going to be monitored by Meta.
  - embedding-shape 5mo ago
    So already, this person wearing these glasses are already agree with that Meta can monitor them. They also probably trust Meta when they say "When the glasses are off, nothing is recording", for better or worse. So with that perspective in mind, it's not far fetched to assume these same people will willingly be naked into front of these recording devices they believe to be off. Of course, anyone who opened a newspaper in the last 10 years or so would know better, but I can definitively see some people not giving a fuck about it.
talkingtab 5mo ago
Meta said the contracting "did not meet (meta's) standards". I am sure that is true. meta's "standard" is not to reveal the illegal, immoral, unethical things meta does. No matter what the harm. Maybe a company with those standards should not get our business. Oops, no wait, maybe they mean the Friedman Doctrine standards? In that case they are entitled to do any and every thing to make a profit. No matter what the harm. [edit: add last two sentences]
- prepend 5mo ago
  Is it illegal or immoral? Having Meta review this material has to be approved by users and has their consent. There was an example in the article where a user’s glasses kept recording the user’s wife after he took them off. That’s bad but on the user, not Facebook. Seems similar to a situation where someone takes nudes of someone without their consent and then sends them off to a lab to be printed. The lab isn’t doing anything illegal or unethical printing them when they ask the user “are these legal” and the user replies “yes.” Unless you want to stop photo printers from ever printing nudes, I think the responsibility is on the user, not the firm.
  - msh 5mo ago
    Is there explicit approval? Or is it buried in the legal agreements?
    - throwpoaster 5mo ago
      Legal agreements are explicit.
      - msh 5mo ago
        Lol
- burnte 5mo ago
  Yeah, why the hell is Meta wa5tching people's videos either? Why PAY a company to invade our privacy and watch our videos? It's flipping BIZARRE.
deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]
I_am_tiberius 5mo ago
Not a fan of regulation in general, but would love to see a ban of cameras on glasses used in public spaces.
- stronglikedan 5mo ago
  Why? What's the difference between that and one of the many, many concealed camera options that you don't even notice? Just that it's noticeable? I don't think that's a good enough reason for yet-more-regulation. You're already being recorded everywhere you go in public by the authorities, and often by people standing right next to you unnoticed, so just act accordingly.
  - jnovek 5mo ago
    “You're already being recorded everywhere you go in public by the authorities” You are the frog being boiled.
  - deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
  - stfp 5mo ago
    Because they will be popular and lots of people will buy them and use them all the time, leading to much more generalized surveillance than the concealed options that only a tiny tiny fraction of people would buy or use (and that we should also regulate)
  - Retr0id 5mo ago
    The problem is if it becomes socially normalized. If you're using a concealed camera and someone notices, you're a creep/asshole.
  - deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
  - applfanboysbgon 5mo ago
    > What's the difference between that and one of the many, many concealed camera options that you don't even notice? The latter is literally illegal, at least in my country and I hope in any civilized country. If your point is that there's no difference between glasses and other forms of creep cams and the glasses should be illegal too, I concur!
rickdg 5mo ago
This is what happens when you buy a camera from the "they trust me, dumb fucks" guy and put it on your face.
- aeve890 5mo ago
  But aren't the users wearing glasses while nude or having sex dumb fucks though?
  - deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
  - wolvoleo 5mo ago
    I can imagine there's a use case for these glasses during sex. It would make for pretty exciting footage :) These users probably didn't know where it would end up.
f311a 5mo ago
Why do they even need workers to classify naked content? They could filter some content prior to passing it to workers. They already have models to moderate explicit content.
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]
sheepcow 5mo ago
If you want to read more about how unsavory aspects of AI-training are off-loaded onto poor workers in third-world countries, would recommend Karen Hao's "Empire of AI". These workers are paid pennies an hour for unstable jobs that expose them to some horrific material.
- intended 5mo ago
  Which examples did they cover in the book?
redbell 5mo ago
> "We see everything - from living rooms to naked bodies," one worker reportedly said. > Meta said this was for the purpose of improving the customer experience, and was a common practice among other companies. Am I reading this correctly?! This is probably the weirdest statement I've read on the internet in twenty years.
- chneu 5mo ago
  How is this weird? People have been trading away their privacy for the smallest possible gains in convenience for a long time.
  - moritzwarhier 5mo ago
    Are you conflating telemetry with literally live-streaming your life to Meta? Because that's what makes the statement weird. edit 2: OK, I see what you mean. But I'm wondering if it should be possible to consent to this via T&C. Basically the same issue as with many online services, turned up to 11, sure. And it involves OTHER people, who have not consented. Stuff like this used to be outrage fuel even when it was more of a social experiment, e.g. the documentary "We live in public" or the "Big brother" TV show. By now, I'm sure there have been millions of influencers doing similar things, but it's very much not considered normal? Streaming to an unknown number of employees might be considered different from streaming to the public, sure. But the core question here is whether there's informed consent, and, IMO also, if it should be possible to consent to this when the other party is a company like Meta and the pretext is not deliberately seeking attention (like influencers and streamers do). edit, clarified social media comparison
    - abustamam 5mo ago
      Tangential but I always thought reality shows like Big Brother were mostly staged. Like not scripted, but definitely not natural.
      - rdiddly 5mo ago
dickeeT 5mo ago
i don't think smart glasses itself is a good idea
jmyeet 5mo ago
So I've never had a smart speaker in my house (Alexa, Apple, Google). I've just never been comfortable with the idea of having an always-on cloud-connected microphone in my house. Not because I thought these companies would deliberately start listening and recording in my house but because they will likely be careless with that data and it'll open the door for law enforcement to request it. Consider the Google Wi-fi scraping case from STreetView. Or they might start scanning for "problematic" behavior, a bit like the Apple CSAM fingerprinting initiative. So not one part of me would ever buy Meta glasses (or the Snap glasses before that). You simply don't have sufficient control over the recordings and big tech companies can't be trusted, as we've witnessed from outsourced workers sharing explicit images. And I bet that's just the tip of the iceberg. I honestly don't understand why anyone would get these and trust Meta to manage the risks.
- xerox13ster 5mo ago
  That is to say nothing of the new technological use cases that could develop from the already existing technology. They just haven’t been thought of developed yet. Things like audio scanning your living space using those Alexa smart speakers with ultrasonics to get an image of not only everything in your space, but where you are in that space as well. That technological use case only came out within the last five or so years, maybe closer to eight. Either way I could see that coming before it became a thing just because ultrasound imaging of your unborn child is a thing ultrasound imaging of the sea floor is a thing so why wouldn’t ultrasound imaging of your living space be a thing by a company who wants to know what you buy. I never ever ever had Alexa I only ever had a Google home because I got it for free with GPM but I almost never used it because I hated the idea of it always listening. I already regret Wi-Fi because they figured out now how to look through walls with that.
- intended 5mo ago
  You were wise enough to avoid this, unfortunately for most people “shiny tech!”.
touwer 5mo ago
Bigtech and the race to the bottom of the ethical pitt. We can still go lowerrrr!
reliablereason 5mo ago
I wonder under what circumstances footage from the glasses are uploaded for classification. Probably this is people asking the glasses something about what they see and the glasses uploading video for classification to generate an answer. People think it is "just AI" so are not very concerned about privacy.
- pfortuny 5mo ago
  Always by default I assume.
  - reliablereason 5mo ago
    Unlikely. That would be extremely expensive in bandwidth, storage and compute. Deciding to build the product like that would be an engineering decision that i would fire someone for.
    - pfortuny 5mo ago
      Well, say a frame per second. Also: how many of these are there today? You can discard them after tagging+using them for learning.
swiftcoder 5mo ago
One of the bigger commercial niches for smart glasses is filming POV porn, so it is hardly surprising that sort of content ended up in the moderation queue. The project should have planned to account for that use case.
- swiftcoder 5mo ago
  And I do appreciate how awkward it is for Meta to admit that use case exists. Even in the Oculus Go days there were a bunch of polite euphemisms internally to avoid mentioning "our device has to ship with a browser so people can watch porn on it"
- hosteur 5mo ago
  Why is there even a “ moderation queue”? Isn’t this people’s private recordings?
  - dylan604 5mo ago
    This is my question too. I get moderating things that people are posting. Being not familiar with the device and how it works, I'd assume that all footage is posted to the user's cloud account even if not publicly posted. This being cloud storage, Meta is "moderating" the footage to ensure CSAM or other restricted footage type is not being stored on their (Meta's) platform. That's my very generous take on it, not that I believe it
  - intended 5mo ago
    I’m betting this is going to some ML / Data labelling pipeline.
    - swiftcoder 5mo ago
      Yeah, moderation may instead be labelling in this case. Its likely the same type of firm handles both sorts of work on behalf of FAANG
      - intended 5mo ago
mproud 5mo ago
https://archive.ph/ubWba https://archive.ph/ubWba
bluedino 5mo ago
What does "in row" mean? For us non-English English speakers.
- danparsonson 5mo ago
  To add to the other replies, when it's an argument, it's pronounced like "how" not like "no".
  - jjk166 5mo ago
    Hence "rowdy"
    - danparsonson 5mo ago
      I never made that connection before!
- jacobtomlinson 5mo ago
  "row" means "an argument"
  - jakecraige 5mo ago
    Yeah, I think it's more of a British English thing. It can also mean things like "in a fight". Like: "those two guys had a big row outside the pub the other night"
    - selimthegrim 5mo ago
      I always remembered it from Phantom Tollbooth "a DREADFUL Rauw"
- oa335 5mo ago
  in an argument
- bobthepanda 5mo ago
  A row in this context is like a dispute or argument
jmull 5mo ago
I believe the tricky privacy and security issues around smart glasses (and other "personal" tech) can be navigated successfully enough by a thoughtful, diligent, responsive company. Which is why I'd never touch a person tech device from Meta. Their entire DNA is written to exploit their users for profit. In my judgement, they literally cannot and will never consider those issues as anything other than something to obscure to keep people unaware of the depth of the exploitation.
malshe 5mo ago
A question for the HN folks who work for Meta - Is the pay so good that it makes it worth working for such a morally bankrupt organization?
- allthetime 5mo ago
  There are countless large, high paying, morally bankrupt companies out there. It’s no mystery that people continue to work for them.
- jmye 5mo ago
  I think it's the excitement because it's a morally bankrupt organization. Some people really get off on knowing that the sum total of everything they do professionally is bent around making kids depressed to the point of suicide, and angry to the point of shooting up their school. I assume that every single person who still works at Meta has done that personal calculus and decided that they fall on the "this is fucking amazing, important work" side.
- bradlys 5mo ago
  I’d like to know the well paying and non-morally bankrupt companies. What company out there has a flawless reputation and is paying $400k/yr for senior eng in SV?
  - cosmicgadget 5mo ago
    There certainly is no middle ground between morally bankrupt and flawless!
hirvi74 5mo ago
Good. Anyone who works for such a company is immoral in my opinion.
prepend 5mo ago
I think Meta, like all companies, doesn’t want its subcontractors creating bad press for them. So it doesn’t surprise me that Meta didnt renew/cancelled a contract that is a net negative for them. Arguing over the reason seems fruitless as no reason is needed per the terms of the contract (I assume since breach of contract wasn’t brought up by the sub).
m-p-3 5mo ago
Absolutely no way I'd buy anything from Meta that has a camera built-in.
tamimio 5mo ago
> and was a common practice among other companies. Meta isn’t lying, you should assume other companies are doing it too, Tesla did it with their cameras, and assume others like any company has access to your camera, I would even assume CCTV cameras too. It’s why for anything sensitive, try to use open source stacks, you might lose some of the features, but it’s a needed compromise.
shevy-java 5mo ago
Facebook may have to rename itself into NaughtyBook or SpyBook or Pr0nBook. They really want people to help them spy on other people here - including their sex life. Expect new sexy videos in 3 ... 2 ...
mxfh 5mo ago
Meta ended its contract with Sama At this scale, this sound like some insider joke contract made up only to make some hustle on the side capitalizing with stock options on the possibility of adhoc news trading bots glitching out on the keyword, here "x.com/sama" signals.
fortran77 5mo ago
People have sex with their glasses on?
- kylehotchkiss 5mo ago
  Are their partners even consenting to glasses with cameras??
  - wolvoleo 5mo ago
    Well they would be right up in your face in some positions, I can't imagine they don't know. And people do record porn for personal viewing. They probably didn't know it was being viewed by meta employees as well.
- krupan 5mo ago
  I'm guessing at least some of these cases are where the glasses are sitting on a nightstand and still recording
JKCalhoun 5mo ago
Oops! Oh, too late. And another nail in the heart of smart glasses…
ghm2180 5mo ago
About the "they asked us to view it and then fired us for it". Having worked in their RL division(I don't work at meta anymore) this story is quite weird for two reasons: 1. Meta AFAIR paid/compensated people — contractors or recruited via ads — to have them submit their data. There are strict privacy protocol and reviews in place to distinguish data use in these cases vs gen public. This is not to say the process is perfect, but if these users are gen public, I would be very shocked. 2. Hiring contractors to submit data is a more controlled environment VS recruitment of gen pub via ads to submit data, but the former has more well understood privacy disclosures than the latter. This means in practice asking contractors to wear glasses and "move around their surroundings naturally and do things" goes well with basically the privacy practice "the data your are submitting we can view and use all of it for purpose X and nothing but X". BUT this framing is with ad based recruited people — which are general users who willingly submit data — is much much harder. My suspicion is they are running ad based recruiting in general public and while those users may have signed a privacy statement it is very surprising that they did not tighten the privacy practices around the use of the data and who has access.
- jdiff 5mo ago
  You seem to misunderstand the situation. These contractors were reviewing sensitive customer data, not collecting data of their own.
  - ghm2180 5mo ago
    The contractors in the report are separate from the incentivized people or contractors typically used to collect data.
    - jdiff 5mo ago
      I can find no incentivized people or contractors collecting data in this story. Just normal users who had their data siphoned up and reviewed by the contractors in this report. I don't understand where your view of this story is coming from given the article.
cwillu 5mo ago
> Meta's glasses have a light in the corner of the frames that is turned on when the built-in camera is recording. Because nobody knows how to put a dot of nail polish on an led they don't want seen, right?
- loeg 5mo ago
  There is some detection for obstructing the LED. It's a little more clever than you assume.
KaiserPro 5mo ago
Ex Meta employee here (yes you are right to boo): The thing that really gets me is that internally there are 4 levels of data 1 being public domain shit (the sky is blue) up to 4 which is private user data, or something that is sensitive if leaked or shared. I was told that by default all user data is level 4, as in if you do anything without decent approval, you're insta fired. There are many stories about at least one person a month during boot camp accessing user data and getting escorted out of the building within hours. The part where I worked, in visual research, we had to jump through a years worth of legal hoops to get permission to record videos in public. We had to build an anonymisation pipeline, bullet proof audit trail, delete as much data as possible, with auto delete if something went wrong. We had rigid rule about where that data could be stored and _who_ could access it. We were not allowed to share "wild" footage (ie data that might have the hint of anyone who hadn't signed a contract) for annotation because it would be given to a third party. THe public datasets we released all had traceable people, locations all with legal waivers signed. Then I hear they just started fucking hosing private data to annotators to _train_ on? without any fucking basic controls at all? Just shows that whenever Zuck or monetsization want something, the rules don't apply. I look forward to that entire industry collapsing in on it's self.
- theplatman 5mo ago
  have always wondered about this especially post Cambridge Analytica where Meta imposed really stringent requirements for API use even for personal things while it was blatantly obvious that internally it was a different story
  - KaiserPro 5mo ago
    But thats the thing internally it wasn't. The user dat controls were really quite good. Its not a mistake that this data got into contractor hands, it was a decision that took lots of time, numerous legal reviews and signoff from Zuck himself.
- dntrkv 5mo ago
  > I was told that by default all user data is level 4, as in if you do anything without decent approval, you're insta fired. There are many stories about at least one person a month during boot camp accessing user data and getting escorted out of the building within hours. Given the size and nature of Meta's business, I would assume they would have better systems in place. SWEs should only have access to PII with explicit consent from users/customers e.g. support tickets. Especially someone going through boot camp. Do they have access to de-anonymized user data during training? Shit, at my last company I had to jump through so many hoops to access user data even with consent from the customer.
ai-network-lab 5mo ago
[flagged]
aklemm 5mo ago
I bet the victims had their socks on too
yaur 5mo ago
It seems the issue is not the glasses users, but the people that the glasses users were having sex with. Did meta get their consent before redistributing this content?
mmanfrin 5mo ago
I got a paywall, first time I've seen that on BBC.
jimmyjazz14 5mo ago
It still blows my mind that anyone would volunteer to don these smart glasses, it's almost like some alien mindset to me.
- lbrito 5mo ago
  Its a reverse They Live!
- cosmicgadget 5mo ago
  Eh, it is the same mindset as the Elon fanboys who constantly rave about Full Self Driving (Supervised). Plenty of that around here. And the five or six HNers that bought the Apple goggles.
swyx 5mo ago
this may be the greatest title i've seen on hacker news in a decade
sidcool 5mo ago
Why would anyone trust Meta with their personal data! After a while it's just natural selection.
rufasterisco 5mo ago
It would be refreshing for once to see the top comment to such articles to be “Yes, we all know it, and we keep those app installed regardless“.
game_the0ry 5mo ago
Can we boycott meta yet? I am sick of this company.
dhosek 5mo ago
This headline reminds me that “row” is one of these words I’ve been mispronouncing almost my whole life (I just learned the correct pronunciation this year). In this context row rhymes with cow,¹ now dough. ⸻ 1. The first rhyme that came to mind was bow, but I realized there was a problem with that example.
- booleandilemma 5mo ago
  That's amazing. I've also been mispronouncing it incorrectly my entire life. Thanks for this info! I'm a native English speaker and my language continues to surprise me. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/row#dictionary-entry-5 https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/row#dictionary-en...
- jjk166 5mo ago
  Row as in rowdy
- hodgesrm 5mo ago
  It's a source of jokes in the UK at least. Most Americans don't know the difference. As the saying goes, "two countries separated by a common language."
- i2shar 5mo ago
  You will appreciate: https://youtu.be/uZV40f0cXF4 https://youtu.be/uZV40f0cXF4 :)
exabrial 5mo ago
who on earth is buying these things and why
MarchApril 5mo ago
I don't even trust the webcam electrical shutter of my laptop to the point I ran tape over it. Why people trust tech giants with their private data so much? What do they think of when they hear "private data"? Like trivial things such as their names, their mother's maiden names, what they ate this morning, posts they saw on Facebook? Because that have to be the case when I see someone flushing with an app on their phone and yells "Siri, play a seductive song to get me and my wife Julie in the mood? Turn it off after 10 minutes. Also don't record us during our hot love making!".

526 points by gorbachev 5mo ago

theowsmnsn 5mo ago

Meta is so evil

0x1ceb00da 5mo ago
Evil is the current meta

gorbachev 5mo ago

Meta cancels the contract with the outsourcing company they contracted to classify smart glasses content after employees at the company whistleblow about serious privacy issues with the content they were paid to classify.

everdrive 5mo ago
Sounds about right. If you know someone who uses these smart glasses, it's important not to tolerate them whatsoever. Don't speak with them, interact with them. I wouldn't even recommend being in their presence.
- jofzar 5mo ago
  There's a name for these people, glassholes
  - OutOfHere 5mo ago
    [flagged]
    - wat10000 5mo ago
      I could see an argument being made for smart glasses that keep everything local. But smart glasses that send everything to The Cloud? Burn them all. Especially if they're from fricken' Meta.
    - voidUpdate 5mo ago
      What are the reasonable and legitimate uses of smart glasses with cameras in that can record without the subject being aware?
      - OutOfHere 5mo ago
        I already noted it in the answer. If a person feels at risk, or even if they're on vacation, they have a right to record something/everything and someone/everyone around them in public, just as they could with a phone. Do you think you will know if someone has their phone in their pocket or in a holster, and is turned on and recording? You will never know. There are dozens if not hundreds of cameras pointed at the street that record people every time they go out in public in any urban setting.
        Forgeties79 5mo ago
        > Or are you new to how phones work? Ease off the gas
        voidUpdate 5mo ago
        If someone is recording you on video with a smartphone, you are generally aware of it, because it has to be pointed at you. Sure, you have a right to record people in public, there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in a public place, but I would quite like to know if you are recording me. I'm also not terribly worried about people recording me having sex or being naked in public without my knowledge...
        pjc50 5mo ago
        > they have a right to record something/everything and someone/everyone around them in public Subject to local law. It's an offence to make indecent images of children, for example. However, it is absolutely not the case that Meta has a right to that data, as a data controller under GDPR. > feels at risk This is a red flag phrase: it's a justification that people whip out for all sorts of unjustified things up to and including murder.
        basisword 5mo ago
        >> even if they're on vacation, they have a right to record something/everything and someone/everyone around them in public Big assumption here that the place you're on vacation doesn't have different laws. You may have absolutely no right to record "everything and everyone" around you.
    - dgellow 5mo ago
      So happy to live in Germany. I couldn’t care less if your gadget can be useful in some cases. I don’t want it close to me
      - deleted 5mo ago
        [deleted]
    - dataflow 5mo ago
      > Smartglasses have reasonabl eand legitimate uses. People also use bodycams that record continuously, such as for legal reasons. People have a right to record in public, such as if they feel at risk. Are you going to go after car cameras next? None of those default to sharing your recording with anyone else, let alone with no practical way to opt out.
    - monegator 5mo ago
      dash cams are local and pointing at the road, not everywhere. body cams are local and mostly used by law enforcement to guarantee they are not abusing their power. glassholes are connected to the cloud. you may have the right to record on public space, i have the right to remain anonymous in the crowd and not be constatly targeted by an advertisement company. Even if 1% of the corner cases are legit uses (blind people having the glasses describe the world around them is fantastic.) 99% of the people using them are assholes that deserve to be put in the ground and the glasses smashed.
      - wolvoleo 5mo ago
        Yes and those blind people are easily recognised and I'm sure there will be a lot more understanding of them using such products.
    - everdrive 5mo ago
      >I don't think that's fair. Smartglasses have legitimate purposes. I think that's true in principle, but in practice there are going to be two kinds of smart glasses users; extraordinarily annoying kids or you adults acting annoying in public so they can post videos to social media, and then normal people who have no clear sense for how much they're violating the privacy of those around them, and just like cool tech. Very, very few users are going to be an interesting or valid use case -- eg: someone who is using them to assist with a disability, or for research, or something. Even most dash cams don't stream to Meta -- they just record the last _n_ hours and you need to know to save off the video if you're in an crash / incident. In other words, most of the time no privacy is violated, and the only potential privacy violation occurs during an incident. Even policy body cams, which I wholeheartedly support, have some pretty strong downsides: currently, if you're at the end of your rope, having the worst day of your life, and in your dishevelment turn a speeding ticket into a BATLEO, you're famous forever for being a lunatic. Maybe the rest of the time you're a good person, and you can learn from this and move on. Except now you have a permanent albatross around your neck. This is a secondary penalty that the justice system did not intend, and has no answer for.
      - randallsquared 5mo ago
        > Very, very few users are going to be an interesting or valid use case You then list a mere two categories. Would your argument have been similar in 2008 if told that in ten years, everyone in the economic first world would be carrying multiple cameras including a dedicated "selfie" camera at all times?
        everdrive 5mo ago
        I'm not sure I understand the point about a dedicate "selfie" camera, however I think we're conflating "percentage of users" with "varieties of use cases." I think there could be quite a cornucopia of potential use cases, but I think per capita most people will not actually be making use of these. As other commenters have pointed out, I'd be a lot more tolerant if the data were not constantly piped to Meta.
    - steve_adams_86 5mo ago
      I can't deprive someone of their right to use them, but I can refuse to interact with someone who's wearing them. This seems like a fair natural consequence. Feel free to wear them, but I won't speak to you when you do.
    - jcgrillo 5mo ago
      If you walk up to me and shove a camera in my face I'll get very loud and very angry with you very quickly. That's kind of paradoxical, if you intended the camera to make you feel safer. I don't think I'm in the minority.
    - 1718627440 5mo ago
      > People have a right to record in public I do not want to live in such a dystopian country. No this right shouldn't exist and I'm glad it doesn't in my country. > If none of this makes sense to you, wait till standalone cameras become much smaller to where they become a smartbutton -- what will you do then? Why are you against killing? Wait till you don't need to hit them but can accelerate metal pieces at them -- what will you do then? > Any American who has any opposition to public recording is fighting the First Amendment and doesn't even deserve to be an American. Anyone who is against X deserves not to be protected by law. "First they came for the communists..."
      - randallsquared 5mo ago
        > No this right shouldn't exist and I'm glad it doesn't in my country. Smartphones are illegal in your country? I am skeptical. The right to record is the right to remember.
        1718627440 5mo ago
        Recording people without consent is illegal.
      - evenhash 5mo ago
        That seems backwards to me. In your country, if you were to record someone committing a crime against you in public, you’re the one who will go to jail? Is the law applied equally, so that businesses, police officers, and government agencies are also not allowed to record in public?
    - JohnFen 5mo ago
      > It is not up to you to deprive anyone their right to use them. I don't see anyone saying that people don't have the right to use them. I see people saying that they have the right to avoid being anywhere near the people who use them and to disapprove of those people. Which is just as much of a right as the right to wear spy glasses.
      - AlecSchueler 5mo ago
        I'm glad to see opinion seems to be swaying back in this direction. It was only a few months ago that the general sentiment seemed to be "times are different than the glasshole days, it's fine now."
      - projektfu 5mo ago
        It is unfortunate that a large number of users here are not hackers, not even in an idealistic philosophical sense, and will betray the public good for their own short-term gain.
    - mulr00ney 5mo ago
      >It is not up to you to deprive anyone their right to use them. Why is it a right? >Are you going to go after car cameras next? No. A car cannot follow me into a building very easily. It cannot turn as quickly as a human head. >Any American who has any opposition to public recording is violating the First Amendment and doesn't even deserve to be an American. lmao
      - 2ndorderthought 5mo ago
        I have no idea why you are downvoted. I do not want my employees recording their day job and selling it, or the creepy dude next to me in the bathroom filming my goods or the log jam flying out of my butt so meta can try to sell me pepto. I also don't want that one time I did something minor illegal like jay walking get auto fed into palantir so they can ship me to the latest internment camp. Or someone stealing my biometrics by just walking past me.
        mulr00ney 5mo ago
        Downvoted because I was flippant about the American comment (because it was _insane_)
    - 2ndorderthought 5mo ago
      I think the only legitimate use is for spies? And by commoditizing them it makes spies slightly less obvious? Oh blind people too. That one makes sense.
- arowthway 5mo ago
  Also make sure to avoid people with smartphones and places with video surveilence.
  - HumblyTossed 5mo ago
    Is this an honest argument? Surely you can think of how glasses might be ... in a different league than the two items you mention?
    - db48x 5mo ago
      Not meaningfully. Anyone holding a smartphone might be recording you. You’d better avoid them if you don’t want to be recorded.
      - azan_ 5mo ago
        Someone has to hold smartphone and point it at you.
      - bredren 5mo ago
        This line makes a valid point. People record strangers all the time. In an obvious way or trying to be sneaky. Just because you don’t notice it doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. However, this is still a different thing than smart glasses which can further be segmented into who designed the smart glasses.
      - NBJack 5mo ago
        Most people don't run around holding out their smartphone directly in front of them. It has to be pointed at the subject, and tends to be obvious. Smart glasses, however, are always aimed at whatever the wearer is looking at. They may or may not be recording (note the reports of people hiding the LED indicators), and at a fair distance could easily be mistaken for a normal pair. The general populace is much more likely to notice the former recording rather than the latter.
        recursive 5mo ago
- divan 5mo ago
  [flagged]
  - HotGarbage 5mo ago
    [flagged]
    - inquirerGeneral 5mo ago
      [dead]
  - jmholla 5mo ago
    You're aware of the privacy implications but think people talking about avoiding people who use them are proposing dumb arguments? I don't follow your logic.
    - divan 5mo ago
      How does not talking to people will solve privacy problems of the new technology? Are you assuming that Meta will see that you ignored your coworker with smart glasses and shut down the project, along with Apple and other smart-glasses manufacturers? I'd love to follow your logic, if you can't follow mine.
      - jmholla 5mo ago
        Ostracization has worked before. And ostracization can lead to decreased sales, which they will definitely notice. If engaging with people to talk about privacy implications involves sacrificing your privacy, I feel that it is reasonable approach. It's like if I had to be punched by someone to talk to them about why them punching people all the time wasn't alright, then I'd find it very reasonable to just not associate with that person. I think you're outlining a relationship with people who actually want to actively engage in these concerns in a responsible manner, and these platforms have definitely demonstrated the opposite and a willingness to use that engagement to inflict the very behavior you want to moderate.
- elevation 5mo ago
  > I wouldn't even recommend being in their presence. Great! Now do people with smart TVs and people with smart phones
  - HotGarbage 5mo ago
    [flagged]
  - intended 5mo ago
    Don’t we already hate the invasive ad tech industry? Aren’t there already posts and articles on how to ensure that TVs don’t farm information from us?
  - AlexandrB 5mo ago
    I'll grant you smartphones, but smart TVs usually don't have cameras/microphones. The problem with smart glasses is that they constantly capture video and upload it to $VENDOR like in this case.
    - elevation 5mo ago
      > smart TVs usually don't have cameras/microphones Friends in industry who are analyzing consumer smart TV sensor data at scale tell me otherwise.
  - deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
- Aaronstotle 5mo ago
  I want to get the Oakley Meta ones so I can record bike rides easier, should I not be tolerated?
  - HotGarbage 5mo ago
    [flagged]
    - ortusdux 5mo ago
      https://gopro.com/en/us/news/ai-training-program https://gopro.com/en/us/news/ai-training-program
      - magicalist 5mo ago
        [dead]
    - prepend 5mo ago
      How is a GoPro better than wearing these glasses while cycling?
      - hilariously 5mo ago
        It's a big obvious doofus camera vs a tiny spy camera, pretty simple!
      - dylan604 5mo ago
        People recognize GoPro cameras for what they are. They are easily understood as a camera. Glasshole devices are not as easily recognizable and people honestly may not realize they are being recorded especially when the glasshole does not inform everyone they are being recorded. Now, for your "while cycling" qualifier, why does it matter? Again, if you stop to talk to people while recording and it is not obvious you are recording, you're a glasshole. Personally, I have no experience with camera quality from the devices, but I do know what a GoPro can do. My gut instinct is that the GoPro will be superior footage.
- paulddraper 5mo ago
  Are GoPros acceptable? I went to the beach, jet skiing. One of the guys had Meta glasses. I liked the footage.
  - everdrive 5mo ago
    >I liked the footage. So did the Meta's LLM training model as well as the contractor across the globe reviewing your footage.
  - red_admiral 5mo ago
    The problem is there's places where you'd get noticed and probably removed for filming with a gopro, or even a smartphone. My local "wellness center" and pools have you deposit your smartphone before you exit the changing area into the showers. The danger with creep glasses is that many people don't know what they are, they can be used with the LED disabled so they're perfect for filming people without their knowledge, and "these are prescription glasses" has a good chance of working. In a place with a "no recording devices" policy, "could you put that gopro away" has wide social acceptance/support, "take those glasses off" less so.
    - paulddraper 5mo ago
      I get the problem. I don't think ostracizing users of Meta Glasses (or Google Glass before that) is the answer. But I get the problems of hidden cameras.
  - cosmicgadget 5mo ago
    People with GoPros are more likely to send, resulting in entertainment value.
getnormality 5mo ago
Well, yeah. If I went straight to the press to trash the reputation of my client's product, rather than communicating internally first to help them proactively address the issues, I would expect to get fired. Not that I am remotely interested in defending Meta, or optimistic that they would proactively address privacy issues. But I don't feel that sympathetic to the outsourcing company here either. I don't know what happened behind the scenes. I'm just going off what is said and not said in the article. If I were whistleblowing about something like this, I would take pains to describe what measures I took internally before going public. I didn't see any of that here. EDIT: Look, to be clear, I think it's bad that naive or uninformed people are buying video recorders from Meta and unintentionally having their private lives intruded on by a company that, based on its history, clearly can't be trusted to be a helpful, transparent partner to customers on privacy. I think it's good that the media is giving people a reminder of this. I think it's good that the sources said something, even though the consequences they suffered seem inevitable. But to me, there is nothing essentially new to be learned here, and I don't know what can or should be done to improve the situation. I think for now, the best thing for people to do is not buy Meta hardware if they have any desire for privacy. Maybe there are laws that could help, but what should be in the laws exactly? It's not obvious to me what would work. I suspect that some of the reason people buy these products is for data capture, and that will sometimes lead to sensitive stuff being recorded. What should the rules be around this and who should decide? Personally I don't know.
- OutOfHere 5mo ago
  Proactively address the issues? Are you kidding me? This is not an issue that just happened to slip by; it is 100% by design. You're fooling no one.
  - getnormality 5mo ago
    What specifically do you mean? It is by design that smart glasses see the things happening in front of their users? Yes, it is. That is why people buy them.
    - 5mo ago
ignoramous 5mo ago
> the content they were paid to classify A Kenyan workers' organisation alleges Meta's decision was caused by the staff speaking out. Meta says it's because Sama did not meet its standards, a criticism Sama rejects ...
SlinkyOnStairs 5mo ago
"Fun" bonus fact: This isn't the first time Sama (the outsourcing company) has had these problems. OpenAI had them classify CSAM, so Sama fired them as a client back in 2022. https://time.com/6247678/openai-chatgpt-kenya-workers/ https://time.com/6247678/openai-chatgpt-kenya-workers/ We're 4 years on, 3 years since that report broke. Not a single thing has improved about how tech companies operate.
- cyanydeez 5mo ago
  Isn't it more that tech companies are just more high profile and integral to political and social landscape than older companies; but reviewing the current political zeitgeist, they're in lockstep to what some, if not all, would just call fascism?
  - inquirerGeneral 5mo ago
    [dead]
  - intended 5mo ago
    Yes and no. Safety and user pain is a part of tech which seems largely ignored, even on sites like HN. I really have no idea why this ignorance prevails; commenters seem to genuinely be unaware of what goes on in Trust and Safety processes. I mean, most users would complain about content moderation, but their experience would be miles ahead of what most of humanity enjoys when it comes to responsiveness. I believe this lack of knowledge, examples, and case history is causing a blind spot in tech centric conversations when it comes to the causes of the Techlash. Unfortunately this backlash is also the perfect cover for authoritarian government action - they come across as responsive to voters while also reigning in firms that are more responsive to American citizens and government officers than their own.
  - 2ndorderthought 5mo ago
    They are literal defense and offense contractors. They hang out at the Pentagon. They sell political data to sway elections. They give gifts to leaders for favors. It is technofacism.
stackghost 5mo ago
Mark Zuckerberg and disrespect for user privacy. Name a more iconic duo.
Frieren 5mo ago
Whistleblower protection is key for any working society. Only dictatorships and oligarchies protect criminals while shaming whistleblowers. I do not care which country the outsourcing company is in. When criminals go global, protection whistleblowers should go global too.

letmetweakit 5mo ago

Unfortunately this news will have no impact, neither on customer behavior, neither on policy, neither on Meta's behavior.

3748595995 5mo ago

[flagged]

monegator 5mo ago
[flagged]

HarHarVeryFunny 5mo ago

Not sure which is worse here - that Meta are recording video from customers' smart glasses, or that they are firing people who talk about it.

OutOfHere 5mo ago
Everything having to do with Meta, starting with its very name, has been evil from the start.
- frm88 5mo ago
  Did you know that after being an angel investor in facebook, Peter Thiel personally mentored Zuckerberg for couple of years? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TP7Z_Eqxhxk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TP7Z_Eqxhxk
embedding-shape 5mo ago
The latter, as they can't even claim to have done so by accident, or "it was just bug".
SV_BubbleTime 5mo ago
Can I squeeze in the just a teeny tiny bit of… why the hell are you wearing an internet camera on you while naked and/or having sex? … although I really extend that to why are you wearing an internet connected camera that is obviously going to be monitored by Meta.
- embedding-shape 5mo ago
  So already, this person wearing these glasses are already agree with that Meta can monitor them. They also probably trust Meta when they say "When the glasses are off, nothing is recording", for better or worse. So with that perspective in mind, it's not far fetched to assume these same people will willingly be naked into front of these recording devices they believe to be off. Of course, anyone who opened a newspaper in the last 10 years or so would know better, but I can definitively see some people not giving a fuck about it.

talkingtab 5mo ago

Meta said the contracting "did not meet (meta's) standards". I am sure that is true. meta's "standard" is not to reveal the illegal, immoral, unethical things meta does. No matter what the harm. Maybe a company with those standards should not get our business. Oops, no wait, maybe they mean the Friedman Doctrine standards? In that case they are entitled to do any and every thing to make a profit. No matter what the harm. [edit: add last two sentences]

prepend 5mo ago
Is it illegal or immoral? Having Meta review this material has to be approved by users and has their consent. There was an example in the article where a user’s glasses kept recording the user’s wife after he took them off. That’s bad but on the user, not Facebook. Seems similar to a situation where someone takes nudes of someone without their consent and then sends them off to a lab to be printed. The lab isn’t doing anything illegal or unethical printing them when they ask the user “are these legal” and the user replies “yes.” Unless you want to stop photo printers from ever printing nudes, I think the responsibility is on the user, not the firm.
- msh 5mo ago
  Is there explicit approval? Or is it buried in the legal agreements?
  - throwpoaster 5mo ago
    Legal agreements are explicit.
    - msh 5mo ago
      Lol
burnte 5mo ago
Yeah, why the hell is Meta wa5tching people's videos either? Why PAY a company to invade our privacy and watch our videos? It's flipping BIZARRE.

deleted 5mo ago

[deleted]

I_am_tiberius 5mo ago

Not a fan of regulation in general, but would love to see a ban of cameras on glasses used in public spaces.

stronglikedan 5mo ago
Why? What's the difference between that and one of the many, many concealed camera options that you don't even notice? Just that it's noticeable? I don't think that's a good enough reason for yet-more-regulation. You're already being recorded everywhere you go in public by the authorities, and often by people standing right next to you unnoticed, so just act accordingly.
- jnovek 5mo ago
  “You're already being recorded everywhere you go in public by the authorities” You are the frog being boiled.
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]
- stfp 5mo ago
  Because they will be popular and lots of people will buy them and use them all the time, leading to much more generalized surveillance than the concealed options that only a tiny tiny fraction of people would buy or use (and that we should also regulate)
- Retr0id 5mo ago
  The problem is if it becomes socially normalized. If you're using a concealed camera and someone notices, you're a creep/asshole.
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]
- applfanboysbgon 5mo ago
  > What's the difference between that and one of the many, many concealed camera options that you don't even notice? The latter is literally illegal, at least in my country and I hope in any civilized country. If your point is that there's no difference between glasses and other forms of creep cams and the glasses should be illegal too, I concur!

rickdg 5mo ago

This is what happens when you buy a camera from the "they trust me, dumb fucks" guy and put it on your face.

aeve890 5mo ago
But aren't the users wearing glasses while nude or having sex dumb fucks though?
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]
- wolvoleo 5mo ago
  I can imagine there's a use case for these glasses during sex. It would make for pretty exciting footage :) These users probably didn't know where it would end up.

f311a 5mo ago

Why do they even need workers to classify naked content? They could filter some content prior to passing it to workers. They already have models to moderate explicit content.

deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]

sheepcow 5mo ago

If you want to read more about how unsavory aspects of AI-training are off-loaded onto poor workers in third-world countries, would recommend Karen Hao's "Empire of AI". These workers are paid pennies an hour for unstable jobs that expose them to some horrific material.

intended 5mo ago
Which examples did they cover in the book?

redbell 5mo ago

> "We see everything - from living rooms to naked bodies," one worker reportedly said. > Meta said this was for the purpose of improving the customer experience, and was a common practice among other companies. Am I reading this correctly?! This is probably the weirdest statement I've read on the internet in twenty years.

chneu 5mo ago
How is this weird? People have been trading away their privacy for the smallest possible gains in convenience for a long time.
- moritzwarhier 5mo ago
  Are you conflating telemetry with literally live-streaming your life to Meta? Because that's what makes the statement weird. edit 2: OK, I see what you mean. But I'm wondering if it should be possible to consent to this via T&C. Basically the same issue as with many online services, turned up to 11, sure. And it involves OTHER people, who have not consented. Stuff like this used to be outrage fuel even when it was more of a social experiment, e.g. the documentary "We live in public" or the "Big brother" TV show. By now, I'm sure there have been millions of influencers doing similar things, but it's very much not considered normal? Streaming to an unknown number of employees might be considered different from streaming to the public, sure. But the core question here is whether there's informed consent, and, IMO also, if it should be possible to consent to this when the other party is a company like Meta and the pretext is not deliberately seeking attention (like influencers and streamers do). edit, clarified social media comparison
  - abustamam 5mo ago
    Tangential but I always thought reality shows like Big Brother were mostly staged. Like not scripted, but definitely not natural.
    - rdiddly 5mo ago

dickeeT 5mo ago

i don't think smart glasses itself is a good idea

jmyeet 5mo ago

So I've never had a smart speaker in my house (Alexa, Apple, Google). I've just never been comfortable with the idea of having an always-on cloud-connected microphone in my house. Not because I thought these companies would deliberately start listening and recording in my house but because they will likely be careless with that data and it'll open the door for law enforcement to request it. Consider the Google Wi-fi scraping case from STreetView. Or they might start scanning for "problematic" behavior, a bit like the Apple CSAM fingerprinting initiative. So not one part of me would ever buy Meta glasses (or the Snap glasses before that). You simply don't have sufficient control over the recordings and big tech companies can't be trusted, as we've witnessed from outsourced workers sharing explicit images. And I bet that's just the tip of the iceberg. I honestly don't understand why anyone would get these and trust Meta to manage the risks.

xerox13ster 5mo ago
That is to say nothing of the new technological use cases that could develop from the already existing technology. They just haven’t been thought of developed yet. Things like audio scanning your living space using those Alexa smart speakers with ultrasonics to get an image of not only everything in your space, but where you are in that space as well. That technological use case only came out within the last five or so years, maybe closer to eight. Either way I could see that coming before it became a thing just because ultrasound imaging of your unborn child is a thing ultrasound imaging of the sea floor is a thing so why wouldn’t ultrasound imaging of your living space be a thing by a company who wants to know what you buy. I never ever ever had Alexa I only ever had a Google home because I got it for free with GPM but I almost never used it because I hated the idea of it always listening. I already regret Wi-Fi because they figured out now how to look through walls with that.
intended 5mo ago
You were wise enough to avoid this, unfortunately for most people “shiny tech!”.

touwer 5mo ago

Bigtech and the race to the bottom of the ethical pitt. We can still go lowerrrr!

reliablereason 5mo ago

I wonder under what circumstances footage from the glasses are uploaded for classification. Probably this is people asking the glasses something about what they see and the glasses uploading video for classification to generate an answer. People think it is "just AI" so are not very concerned about privacy.

pfortuny 5mo ago
Always by default I assume.
- reliablereason 5mo ago
  Unlikely. That would be extremely expensive in bandwidth, storage and compute. Deciding to build the product like that would be an engineering decision that i would fire someone for.
  - pfortuny 5mo ago
    Well, say a frame per second. Also: how many of these are there today? You can discard them after tagging+using them for learning.

swiftcoder 5mo ago

One of the bigger commercial niches for smart glasses is filming POV porn, so it is hardly surprising that sort of content ended up in the moderation queue. The project should have planned to account for that use case.

swiftcoder 5mo ago
And I do appreciate how awkward it is for Meta to admit that use case exists. Even in the Oculus Go days there were a bunch of polite euphemisms internally to avoid mentioning "our device has to ship with a browser so people can watch porn on it"
hosteur 5mo ago
Why is there even a “ moderation queue”? Isn’t this people’s private recordings?
- dylan604 5mo ago
  This is my question too. I get moderating things that people are posting. Being not familiar with the device and how it works, I'd assume that all footage is posted to the user's cloud account even if not publicly posted. This being cloud storage, Meta is "moderating" the footage to ensure CSAM or other restricted footage type is not being stored on their (Meta's) platform. That's my very generous take on it, not that I believe it
- intended 5mo ago
  I’m betting this is going to some ML / Data labelling pipeline.
  - swiftcoder 5mo ago
    Yeah, moderation may instead be labelling in this case. Its likely the same type of firm handles both sorts of work on behalf of FAANG
    - intended 5mo ago

mproud 5mo ago

https://archive.ph/ubWba https://archive.ph/ubWba

bluedino 5mo ago

What does "in row" mean? For us non-English English speakers.

danparsonson 5mo ago
To add to the other replies, when it's an argument, it's pronounced like "how" not like "no".
- jjk166 5mo ago
  Hence "rowdy"
  - danparsonson 5mo ago
    I never made that connection before!
jacobtomlinson 5mo ago
"row" means "an argument"
- jakecraige 5mo ago
  Yeah, I think it's more of a British English thing. It can also mean things like "in a fight". Like: "those two guys had a big row outside the pub the other night"
  - selimthegrim 5mo ago
    I always remembered it from Phantom Tollbooth "a DREADFUL Rauw"
oa335 5mo ago
in an argument
bobthepanda 5mo ago
A row in this context is like a dispute or argument

jmull 5mo ago

I believe the tricky privacy and security issues around smart glasses (and other "personal" tech) can be navigated successfully enough by a thoughtful, diligent, responsive company. Which is why I'd never touch a person tech device from Meta. Their entire DNA is written to exploit their users for profit. In my judgement, they literally cannot and will never consider those issues as anything other than something to obscure to keep people unaware of the depth of the exploitation.

malshe 5mo ago

A question for the HN folks who work for Meta - Is the pay so good that it makes it worth working for such a morally bankrupt organization?

allthetime 5mo ago
There are countless large, high paying, morally bankrupt companies out there. It’s no mystery that people continue to work for them.
jmye 5mo ago
I think it's the excitement because it's a morally bankrupt organization. Some people really get off on knowing that the sum total of everything they do professionally is bent around making kids depressed to the point of suicide, and angry to the point of shooting up their school. I assume that every single person who still works at Meta has done that personal calculus and decided that they fall on the "this is fucking amazing, important work" side.
bradlys 5mo ago
I’d like to know the well paying and non-morally bankrupt companies. What company out there has a flawless reputation and is paying $400k/yr for senior eng in SV?
- cosmicgadget 5mo ago
  There certainly is no middle ground between morally bankrupt and flawless!

hirvi74 5mo ago

Good. Anyone who works for such a company is immoral in my opinion.

prepend 5mo ago

I think Meta, like all companies, doesn’t want its subcontractors creating bad press for them. So it doesn’t surprise me that Meta didnt renew/cancelled a contract that is a net negative for them. Arguing over the reason seems fruitless as no reason is needed per the terms of the contract (I assume since breach of contract wasn’t brought up by the sub).

m-p-3 5mo ago

Absolutely no way I'd buy anything from Meta that has a camera built-in.

tamimio 5mo ago

> and was a common practice among other companies. Meta isn’t lying, you should assume other companies are doing it too, Tesla did it with their cameras, and assume others like any company has access to your camera, I would even assume CCTV cameras too. It’s why for anything sensitive, try to use open source stacks, you might lose some of the features, but it’s a needed compromise.

shevy-java 5mo ago

Facebook may have to rename itself into NaughtyBook or SpyBook or Pr0nBook. They really want people to help them spy on other people here - including their sex life. Expect new sexy videos in 3 ... 2 ...

mxfh 5mo ago

Meta ended its contract with Sama At this scale, this sound like some insider joke contract made up only to make some hustle on the side capitalizing with stock options on the possibility of adhoc news trading bots glitching out on the keyword, here "x.com/sama" signals.

fortran77 5mo ago

People have sex with their glasses on?

kylehotchkiss 5mo ago
Are their partners even consenting to glasses with cameras??
- wolvoleo 5mo ago
  Well they would be right up in your face in some positions, I can't imagine they don't know. And people do record porn for personal viewing. They probably didn't know it was being viewed by meta employees as well.
krupan 5mo ago
I'm guessing at least some of these cases are where the glasses are sitting on a nightstand and still recording

JKCalhoun 5mo ago

Oops! Oh, too late. And another nail in the heart of smart glasses…

ghm2180 5mo ago

About the "they asked us to view it and then fired us for it". Having worked in their RL division(I don't work at meta anymore) this story is quite weird for two reasons: 1. Meta AFAIR paid/compensated people — contractors or recruited via ads — to have them submit their data. There are strict privacy protocol and reviews in place to distinguish data use in these cases vs gen public. This is not to say the process is perfect, but if these users are gen public, I would be very shocked. 2. Hiring contractors to submit data is a more controlled environment VS recruitment of gen pub via ads to submit data, but the former has more well understood privacy disclosures than the latter. This means in practice asking contractors to wear glasses and "move around their surroundings naturally and do things" goes well with basically the privacy practice "the data your are submitting we can view and use all of it for purpose X and nothing but X". BUT this framing is with ad based recruited people — which are general users who willingly submit data — is much much harder. My suspicion is they are running ad based recruiting in general public and while those users may have signed a privacy statement it is very surprising that they did not tighten the privacy practices around the use of the data and who has access.

jdiff 5mo ago
You seem to misunderstand the situation. These contractors were reviewing sensitive customer data, not collecting data of their own.
- ghm2180 5mo ago
  The contractors in the report are separate from the incentivized people or contractors typically used to collect data.
  - jdiff 5mo ago
    I can find no incentivized people or contractors collecting data in this story. Just normal users who had their data siphoned up and reviewed by the contractors in this report. I don't understand where your view of this story is coming from given the article.

cwillu 5mo ago

> Meta's glasses have a light in the corner of the frames that is turned on when the built-in camera is recording. Because nobody knows how to put a dot of nail polish on an led they don't want seen, right?

loeg 5mo ago
There is some detection for obstructing the LED. It's a little more clever than you assume.

KaiserPro 5mo ago

Ex Meta employee here (yes you are right to boo): The thing that really gets me is that internally there are 4 levels of data 1 being public domain shit (the sky is blue) up to 4 which is private user data, or something that is sensitive if leaked or shared. I was told that by default all user data is level 4, as in if you do anything without decent approval, you're insta fired. There are many stories about at least one person a month during boot camp accessing user data and getting escorted out of the building within hours. The part where I worked, in visual research, we had to jump through a years worth of legal hoops to get permission to record videos in public. We had to build an anonymisation pipeline, bullet proof audit trail, delete as much data as possible, with auto delete if something went wrong. We had rigid rule about where that data could be stored and _who_ could access it. We were not allowed to share "wild" footage (ie data that might have the hint of anyone who hadn't signed a contract) for annotation because it would be given to a third party. THe public datasets we released all had traceable people, locations all with legal waivers signed. Then I hear they just started fucking hosing private data to annotators to _train_ on? without any fucking basic controls at all? Just shows that whenever Zuck or monetsization want something, the rules don't apply. I look forward to that entire industry collapsing in on it's self.

theplatman 5mo ago
have always wondered about this especially post Cambridge Analytica where Meta imposed really stringent requirements for API use even for personal things while it was blatantly obvious that internally it was a different story
- KaiserPro 5mo ago
  But thats the thing internally it wasn't. The user dat controls were really quite good. Its not a mistake that this data got into contractor hands, it was a decision that took lots of time, numerous legal reviews and signoff from Zuck himself.
dntrkv 5mo ago
> I was told that by default all user data is level 4, as in if you do anything without decent approval, you're insta fired. There are many stories about at least one person a month during boot camp accessing user data and getting escorted out of the building within hours. Given the size and nature of Meta's business, I would assume they would have better systems in place. SWEs should only have access to PII with explicit consent from users/customers e.g. support tickets. Especially someone going through boot camp. Do they have access to de-anonymized user data during training? Shit, at my last company I had to jump through so many hoops to access user data even with consent from the customer.

ai-network-lab 5mo ago

[flagged]

aklemm 5mo ago

I bet the victims had their socks on too

yaur 5mo ago

It seems the issue is not the glasses users, but the people that the glasses users were having sex with. Did meta get their consent before redistributing this content?

mmanfrin 5mo ago

I got a paywall, first time I've seen that on BBC.

jimmyjazz14 5mo ago

It still blows my mind that anyone would volunteer to don these smart glasses, it's almost like some alien mindset to me.

lbrito 5mo ago
Its a reverse They Live!
cosmicgadget 5mo ago
Eh, it is the same mindset as the Elon fanboys who constantly rave about Full Self Driving (Supervised). Plenty of that around here. And the five or six HNers that bought the Apple goggles.

swyx 5mo ago

this may be the greatest title i've seen on hacker news in a decade

sidcool 5mo ago

Why would anyone trust Meta with their personal data! After a while it's just natural selection.

rufasterisco 5mo ago

It would be refreshing for once to see the top comment to such articles to be “Yes, we all know it, and we keep those app installed regardless“.

game_the0ry 5mo ago

Can we boycott meta yet? I am sick of this company.

dhosek 5mo ago

This headline reminds me that “row” is one of these words I’ve been mispronouncing almost my whole life (I just learned the correct pronunciation this year). In this context row rhymes with cow,¹ now dough. ⸻ 1. The first rhyme that came to mind was bow, but I realized there was a problem with that example.

booleandilemma 5mo ago
That's amazing. I've also been mispronouncing it incorrectly my entire life. Thanks for this info! I'm a native English speaker and my language continues to surprise me. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/row#dictionary-entry-5 https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/row#dictionary-en...
jjk166 5mo ago
Row as in rowdy
hodgesrm 5mo ago
It's a source of jokes in the UK at least. Most Americans don't know the difference. As the saying goes, "two countries separated by a common language."
i2shar 5mo ago
You will appreciate: https://youtu.be/uZV40f0cXF4 https://youtu.be/uZV40f0cXF4 :)

exabrial 5mo ago

who on earth is buying these things and why

MarchApril 5mo ago

I don't even trust the webcam electrical shutter of my laptop to the point I ran tape over it. Why people trust tech giants with their private data so much? What do they think of when they hear "private data"? Like trivial things such as their names, their mother's maiden names, what they ate this morning, posts they saw on Facebook? Because that have to be the case when I see someone flushing with an app on their phone and yells "Siri, play a seductive song to get me and my wife Julie in the mood? Turn it off after 10 minutes. Also don't record us during our hot love making!".