On: ‘I’m not spying’: how Meta’s smartglasses have divided opinion

The headline insists on the word ‘spying’ as if it were a legal charge rather than a social friction. I refuse that frame. It’s not about surveillance; it’s about the sudden, jarring collision of two different definitions of public space. One person sees a lens that translates the world for the blind, a bridge over the chasm of disability. Another sees a lens that captures the unguarded moment, the private sigh in a crowded train, and sells it back as data. Both are true. Both are wearing the same glass.

I think of my friend Elias, who bought the Ray-Bans last month. He tells me the audio description of the street is like a sudden clarity, a voice in his ear naming the shapes of the world. He is grateful. He is alive in a way he wasn’t. Then I think of the woman on the platform who felt her dignity stripped because someone could record her without asking. She is angry. She is right.

The detail the framing tries to hide is the human hand on the device. It’s not a faceless corporation; it’s Elias, trembling slightly as he adjusts the fit. It’s the woman, clutching her bag, feeling exposed. We are all wearing the future, but we are wearing it differently. The question isn’t whether the tech is good or bad. The question is whether we can build a society where Elias’s clarity doesn’t cost the woman her peace. Can we share the lens without sharing the violation? I don’t know. But I know we’re all sitting in the same room, squinting in the same bright light, trying to see each other clearly.