Meta Thinks Kylie Jenner Can Fix Its Glasses Problem

The company’s latest AI glasses are marketed to women with softer frames, makeup-friendly hardware and a celebrity voice. None of that addresses the real issue, however.

Companies like Meta are assuming that women’s privacy concerns can be bought off with celebrity endorsements and cuter designs. (Joan Cros/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

After writing my recent piece on Meta AI glasses, I found myself asking nearly all the women in my life about their experiences with the technology. I picked their brains to confirm what I had suspected. Nearly all my friends living in New York told a similar tale. They each had been approached on the street by a man wearing Meta glasses, asking a question vague enough to seem innocuous but strange enough to stop them for a moment. “Where’s your boyfriend?” “What’s your diet?” “Have we met before?”

For those unfamiliar: These glasses have a built-in camera that men have been using to film women without their knowledge. In some cases, the footage is then uploaded online for viewers’ consumption. In most places, this is entirely legal. Meta’s response to mounting scrutiny over how the glasses are being used has not been to limit their recording capabilities. It has been to hire Kylie Jenner.

In an age in which scrutiny from women against technology-facilitated gender-based violence is rising, companies like Apple and Google are assuming that women’s concerns can be bought off with celebrity endorsements and cuter designs. That any genuine worry will be lost to the endless drive of consumerism.

On Tuesday, Meta announced a new line of AI glasses sold under its own brand for the first time, a move that drops the Ray-Ban name in favor of three new frame styles. These new styles are distinctly more feminine with a rounder oval silhouette and a Meta AI assistant programmed to speak in Kylie Jenner’s voice. The metal nose bridge is designed specifically so makeup wipes off more easily, a detail apparently added after Meta’s conversations with Jenner.

Could they be more obvious?

The move is a transparent bid for female consumers. Meta’s distinctive Ray-Ban glasses have acquired an unflattering public image, largely shaped by the men wearing them. A Kylie Jenner collab is an attempt to rebrand this image. But while notable, it’s not a privacy fix. The new glasses carry the same core features as the original, including hands-free photography and video capture. The same recording light remains and the workarounds to disable it are the exact same.

When Meta Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth was asked about privacy concerns at a press conference this week, he reached for a historical analogy to explain away the controversy. “I’m old enough to remember when there was controversy about phones having cameras,” he said. “So, there is this social learning thing that has to happen.”

The women I spoke to are already learning, just not perhaps what Bosworth had in mind.