One good Samaritan’s silence is part of why her actions are resonating.
A New York subway rider is going viral after a TikToker accused her of breaking his Meta AI glasses, a moment that instantly made her a folk hero…. The eyewear, which can discreetly record video, has been criticized as a creeping surveillance threat. …the internet has already taken her side, celebrating her as the anti-AI vigilante of their dreams.
No verbal engagement, no explanation, no negotiation. Just direct action against the surveillance infrastructure and then walk away.
She’s been compared to “The Butlerian Jihad”, which Herbert wrote as humanity’s violent rejection of thinking machines after they’d been used for oppression.
We’re watching cultural groundwork being laid for that framing. And there are serious philosophical foundations to consider as well.
Surveillance Ethics: Harm vs Defense
| Ethical Framework | Surveillance as Harm | Defensive Response |
|---|---|---|
| Assault (Legal Definition) | Assault is the threat or apprehension of harm, not just physical contact. Covert recording creates reasonable apprehension: your image fed into facial recognition, your home address exposed, stalking enabled. The 2024 Harvard demo proved these aren’t hypothetical harms—they’re documented capabilities. | Breaking the device is defense against ongoing assault, not initiation of assault. You cannot “assault” a weapon. |
| Bodily Autonomy | Your image, likeness, and presence in space are extensions of your person. Capturing them without consent is violation of bodily autonomy—the same principle underlying prohibitions on non-consensual photography, revenge porn, upskirt laws. | Defending bodily autonomy against technological violation is ethically equivalent to defending against physical violation. |
| Consent (Bioethics Standard) | Informed consent requires: disclosure, comprehension, voluntariness, competence. Covert surveillance by design eliminates all four. The indicator light theater—easily defeated with stickers—demonstrates Meta knows consent is impossible and chose to proceed anyway. | You cannot retroactively consent to surveillance you didn’t know was happening. “Ask nicely” presupposes knowledge you’re being recorded. |
| Harm Principle (Mill) | “The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.” Surveillance that enables doxing, stalking, and harassment is demonstrable harm. | Preventing harm to yourself and bystanders falls squarely within Mill’s framework. Her liberty to destroy his glasses is justified by his harm to others. |
| Necessity Defense (Legal) | Property destruction is justified when preventing greater harm. Breaking a window to rescue someone from a fire. Destroying a weapon being used to threaten. | $300 device destruction vs. enabling real-time doxing of strangers. The proportionality calculation is obvious. |
| Kant’s Categorical Imperative | “Act so that you treat humanity, in your own person and in that of another, always as an end and never merely as a means.” Using strangers as “content” for entertainment—”sounds I thought were hilarious”—is treating humans as means. | She refused to be a means to his content. She acted as an end in herself. |
| Duty to Rescue | Many jurisdictions impose legal duty to assist others facing serious harm when you can do so without unreasonable risk. Bystanders were also being surveilled. | Destroying the surveillance device protected not just herself but everyone in that subway car. Good Samaritan action. |
| Feminist Ethics (Vulnerability & Power) | Technology magnifies existing power asymmetries. Facemash targeted women specifically. Meta’s platform has documented harms to women: enabling stalkers, domestic abusers using location data, teen girls’ mental health. Pattern of gendered harm is established. | Resistance to gendered technological harm is ethically continuous with resistance to gendered physical harm. Same principle, different vector. |
The Inversion Exposed
| Glasshole View | Ethical Reality |
|---|---|
| “She assaulted me” | He was committing ongoing assault via surveillance; she defended |
| “She destroyed my property” | She neutralized a device being used to harm |
| “She should have asked nicely” | Consent must be sought by the person acting on others, not demanded by the victim post-hoc |
| “$300 damages” | Harm of surveillance (doxing, stalking, harassment) >> property value |
| “I filed a police report” | Legal system designed before these harms existed; law lags ethics |
| “Help me find her” | Attempting to use surveillance apparatus to punish resistance to surveillance |
The Zuckerberg Through-Line
| Era | Action | Framing | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| Facemash (2003) | Used technology to non-consensually rank women’s bodies | “Prank” | Became billionaire |
| Meta Ray-Bans (2024-25) | Sells technology enabling non-consensual surveillance; user films strangers; woman resists | “Product feature” | She’s framed as criminal |
The ethical violation of Facebook has always been the same since its Harvard origins. It’s gone from Facemash to Face-Smash, as the immoral technology has been allowed to scale against humanity.