SAN FRANCISCO, California – It appears that a future software upgrade of Meta’s “smart” glasses will be full of features that will take users through varying levels of frustration. The company recently released its new Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses, complete with AI elements designed to compete with the world’s best. According to a well-known tech journalist, the Reality Pro Max feature, due to be rolled out in time for Christmas, will really try users’ patience.

Casey Newton, the well-known former editor of Verge who now publishes the iconic Platformer newsletter, said that he was mistakenly copied in on an internal email that revealed the kinds of things that Meta glasses users can expect from the late-in-the-year upgrade. 

Among the new “features” coming in this upgrade, according to Newton, is the Engagement Penalty, which you suffer if you don’t read each and every post in your Facebook feed from start to finish. The penalty will consist of a feed blackout that can last as long as 30 minutes, depending on how many posts you try to skip. Combine that with the Smart Pause feature, which applies a gentle shock if you try to close your eyes or look away, and you have a not-at-all subtle plan for making users do nothing but keep their eyes glued to their Facebook feed.

Newton knows a thing or two about blowing the whistle. In 2022, he broke multiple stories about workers at what was then Twitter being told of their layoffs by his own reporting, before they found out from their employer. If Newton says it, then we believe him.

Among the other “upgrades” described in the leaked email were a plan to make sponsored content appear every third slot in the feed (and, when coupled with the engagement penalty, would be essentially unavoidable) and a Connection Score feature that displays floating biographical information for every person you encounter, including their relationship status, recent purchases, and a color-coded compatibility rating based on mutual interests and social media activity.

According to the mistakenly leaked email, Meta higher-ups believe that users will be so accustomed to the pre-upgrade functionality of the smart glasses by the time the upgrade rolls out that they will be hard-pressed not to keep wearing them.

We reached out to Meta for comment but have received nothing yet. We’re checking our Facebook feed incessantly, just in case.