Can Wearing Google Glass Leave You the Victim of a Hate Crime?
A San Francisco local is claiming to be the first ever victim of a Google Glass hate crime. Last week, Sarah Slocum, a social media and business consultant, entered a San Francisco punk-rock dive called Molotov’s wearing her Google Glass, and as Gawker put it, everything went exactly as you’d expect.
Slocum posted about the incident on Facebook, saying: “OMG so you’ll never believe this but… I got verbally and physically assaulted and robbed last night in the city, had things thrown at me because of some wanker Google Glass haters, then some *bleeeeeeeeeep* tore them off my face and ran out with them then and when I ran out after him his *bleeeeeeep* friends stole my purse, cellphone wallet and everything.” She later went on to describe the scuffle as being the first ever Google Glass hate crime, saying on Facebook, “And what makes this story special is that no one has experienced a hate crime or been targeted for a hate crime, which is what it was, for wearing Google Glass.”
Realistically, there are three different things that this incident could be. Firstly, it actually is a hate crime as described by Slocum. Secondly, it could simply be just another drunk altercation. Lastly, and perhaps most likely, it’s a culture clash, with one said hailing Google glass as a piece of equipment on the cutting-edge of both technology and coolness, and the other slagging it off as geeky creepiness.
While it’s unclear as to whether or not Slocum did anything to provoke the “wankers,” Google recently had to release a code of conduct for Google Glass users, which warns them not to be “creepy or rude (aka, a ‘Glasshole’).”
In the end, who can really say? A patron of Molotov told San Francisco’s KPIX that the bar is “probably one of the more punk rock bars in the city. It’s not really Google Glass country,” suggesting that “a level of tact in that sort of establishment might have behooved her.”
Sources:
http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/google-internet-eyewear-fans-don-glassholes-article-1.1620222
http://valleywag.gawker.com/google-asks-glass-users-to-please-stop-being-so-fucking-1526133102
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/02/google-glass-cries-hate-crime.html
http://gawker.com/woman-robbed-at-punk-bar-by-wanker-google-glass-haters-1531450047/all
http://blog.sfgate.com/stew/2014/02/24/woman-i-was-attacked-in-s-f-over-google-glass/
