# Public Stigma Is Not a Governance Mechanism Social disapproval of a technology or behavior can suppress its adoption by the general population without constraining its misuse, because the people causing harm are usually a small, motivated subpopulation who are indifferent to — or even energized by — the stigma. Stigma changes who's willing to be seen doing the thing; it doesn't change what the people already doing it are able to do. ## Evidence **Source**: [[3. Resources/Literature Notes/Researchers Show How Meta's 'Pervert Glasses' Are Used to Harass Women - Literature Note]] > [!quote] > But public sentiment — while perhaps meaning people will be less likely to wear the glasses — is not a governance mechanism. Researcher Ben Egliston's point about the "pervert glasses" nickname attached to Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses: the label may suppress mainstream adoption, but the men producing covert-harassment content on Instagram are not deterred by reputational cost — the covertness is the point, and platform moderation keyed to overt violation markers doesn't catch the format either. The actual harm continues unconstrained by the stigma that surrounds the device. ## Scope & conditions - Holds when: harm is produced by a small, motivated subpopulation and distribution is platform-mediated (so stigma-driven attrition among casual/uncommitted users doesn't touch the harm-producing minority). - Breaks when: adoption itself is the harm vector and broad network effects matter (there, stigma-driven attrition among the general population does reduce total harm, because scale is the mechanism, not misuse by a subset). - A community or platform that treats reputational damage to a technology as sufficient response is substituting a weak, diffuse pressure for an actual enforcement mechanism (moderation policy, legal duty-of-care, hardware design change). ## Links - [[3. Resources/Literature Notes/Researchers Show How Meta's 'Pervert Glasses' Are Used to Harass Women - Literature Note]] — because evidence-for: the source Literature note this claim was distilled from. - [[3. Resources/Permanent Notes/Concealment Converts One Grievance Into Two]] — because contrasts on enforcement design: that note is about punishing disclosure of a permitted-but-stigmatized practice; this note is about a stigma that never had teeth as enforcement in the first place. Both warn against treating social disapproval as if it were a policy. - [[3. Resources/MOCs/Commons & Community Governance MOC]] — because applies-in: community and platform moderation-mechanism design is a recurring thread in this MOC; this note adds the "stigma isn't enforcement" caution to it. ## Implications - Community codes of conduct and event photography/recording policies should name specific prohibited behaviors and enforcement paths rather than relying on informal social pressure to suppress misuse of a technology (the source article's own concrete suggestion: name wearable cameras explicitly in consent policy, don't just hope the "pervert glasses" reputation does the work). ## Maintenance - Last tended: 2026-08-13 - Next review: 2026-11-11