A UK-based activist group has launched a guerrilla fake advertising campaign across London targeting Meta’s smart glasses.
The spoof campaign hijacked bus stops, including locations right outside Meta’s London headquarters with fake ads for the product, including one that uses a clever optical illusion that turned Kylie Jenner’s face into a dystopian surveillance. Kylie Jenner is the official face fronting all Meta glasses eyewear.
At first glance, the “ad” looks almost indistinguishable from a legitimate ad showing Kylie Jenner wearing a pair of smart glasses. However, on closer look, the image turns to black and white and Jenner’s face takes on a creepy, skeletal look. Instead of “Meta AI glasses” the text changes to “Meta: We’re always watching.”
This also follows another fake Meta glasses ad that cropped up in London earlier this month that’s even less subtle. “The biggest advance in pervert technology since the trenchcoat,” it says above a pair of glasses. “Hey Meta, start filming.”
“Just because you CAN create sunglasses that record people without their consent and use the footage to train robots… Doesn’t mean you should,” the activist group wrote in an Instagram post about the campaign.
The group also pointed to a recent report from the Financial Times that claimed Meta is testing a new type of glasses that’s meant to continuously record audio and video.
Meta recently announced that it would disable the cameras on its smart glasses if it detected that the recording LEDs have been physically tampered with. Meta said it would “continue to work on ways to make them even safer and more trustworthy.”
Meta smart glasses is the latest addition to Silicon Valley’s ever-evolving line of wearable tech to hit the market in 2023. It’s a collaboration between Mark Zuckerberg’s company with Ray-Ban.