You may be familiar with rule 34 of the internet, which states that if something exists or can be imagined, there will almost certainly be online porn of it. Now let me introduce my rule 35: whenever a new technology is created, it will, without exception, immediately be used to harass girls and women.
See, for example, Meta’s “pervert glasses”. As anyone could have foreseen, putting a tiny camera and microphone into smartglasses would immediately lead to people using them to record and harass women. Lo and behold, that is exactly what happened. So-called manfluencers have filmed themselves trying to flirt with women in public spaces and then uploaded the footage to TikTok. The women in these videos are often not aware they’ve been recorded until their identities are shared online and they are harassed by strangers. And what’s Meta doing about this? It’s instituted a few bans and made some privacy updates, but doesn’t seem to have an appetite to properly solve the problem. Indeed, at the Meta Connect 2026 keynote, Mark Zuckerberg did not feel the need to apologize to the women whose lives have been upended by his technology.
Then there is the Flock license plate tracking system, which has been abused by an extraordinary number of law enforcement officers to track the locations of their exes or other women they are sexually interested in. And, of course, there are the AI image generators, which have been used to create deepfake pornography of women and girls. According to a 2023 report, “deepfake pornography made up 98 per cent of all deepfake videos online, and 99 per cent depicted women”.
Now, there’s a new toxic tech trend to worry about: livestreamed robogroping. Police in Cologne, Germany, are currently investigating an incident in which a humanoid robot controlled by two teenage males touched a 16-year-old girl’s buttocks and made sexually suggestive gestures toward her. Footage of the groping robot, which was wearing human clothes and a fake mustache, was reportedly livestreamed by the two males online.
The robot in question has now been confiscated by the local police, who seem a little befuddled by the whole thing. “We have not been aware of this phenomenon so far,” a police spokesperson told the Associated Press, adding it was “new territory for us”.
It may be new territory but I can guarantee you that this won’t be the last time we hear about an incident like this. Getting your hands on an AI-powered humanoid robot is still a lot more expensive than buying a pair of smartglasses, but the technology is rapidly becoming a lot more accessible. Earlier this year, a school in New York made headlines after announcing its new teaching assistant would be a humanoid robot called Sally, made by a company that makes realistic sex dolls. Outrage over the announcement forced the school district to halt its plans, but it’s only a matter of time before we see humanoid robots in schools. Indeed, in a report published last year, Bank of America predicted that, as costs go down, we will see mass adoption of humanoid robots from 2035 onwards. By 2060, they expect there to be 3bn humanoid robots, which will replace 20% of the workforce in the industrial sector and 50% of the workforce in the service sector.
As the industry develops, expect corporations to ensure that their profit-maximizing robots have more legal protections than the humans they may harm. This week in Philadelphia, for example, a woman was arrested after allegedly blocking the path of one of the annoying Uber delivery robots that are now ubiquitous in the city. (The fact the police intervened is absolutely wild to me as a Philadelphia resident, considering they rarely seem interested in doing their jobs.) A growing body of case law has found that police officers are not under any legal obligation to protect citizens who are not in their custody. Yet they seem surprisingly keen on protecting robots.
Our brave new world, everyone! I’m afraid pervert glasses are just a small glimpse of what’s to come. By 2060, robogroping may be as commonplace as catcalling is today.
You can pay $7,500 to take dating lessons from a man accused of rape
Braden Eric Peters, who goes by the nom-de-influencer Clavicular, shot to fame for smashing his face with a hammer in order to beautify himself. Bonesmashing, as it’s called, is part of a toxic trend called looksmaxxing, which involves people (largely young men) going to extremes to increase their “sexual market value”. When not bonesmashing, Peters gets into regular trouble with the law. Most lately, he was charged with rape and drug offenses in Massachusetts last month; his attorneys have denied the allegations. Nevertheless, it seems that there are people out there willing to pay $7,500 for a week at Camp Looksmax, a new venture in which Peters coaches attendees on confidence and dating.
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Katie Miller blames the fall of the Roman Empire on women
“If more women put the same energy into their marriages and into finding a spouse that they do into their careers, you would see society have a lot more babies because, ultimately, that’s what led to the downfall of Rome – when women stopped having babies, and you started putting energy elsewhere,” Stephen Miller’s influential wife said on Fox News this week. Someone buy the Millers a history book please.
Tradwife influencer Nara Smith says she is ‘getting her tubes tied’
Smith, 25, and her husband, 28, have four kids called Slim Easy, Rumble Honey, Whimsy Lou and Fawnie Golden. Speaking on the Aspire podcast recently, Smith said she didn’t think she could handle having another kid. Sounds sensible to me, but I’m not sure Katie Miller’s going to approve of that decision.
Women up to 74% more likely than men to be told autoimmune condition symptoms are psychological
“The damage caused to women by these types of misdiagnosis can be very long lasting in terms of trusting doctors and their own self-esteem,” the lead author of the UK-based study said.
A Palestinian toddler watched her mother get burned alive in Gaza City
Reem Asaad Awad was killed when an Israeli airstrike hit her home. Her young daughter, Maryam Ahmed Ghanem, was pulled out of the burning building. Maryam’s father was reportedly killed earlier in the ongoing genocide, and it’s unclear whether she has surviving family or will become one of Gaza’s many WCNSFs: wounded child, no surviving family.
Sally Rooney is unable to sell her books in the UK because of Palestine Action support
The bestselling author said last July that royalties from her book would be used to support direct action group Palestine Action, which has been proscribed as a terrorist organization in the UK, despite the fact that it has never killed anyone or attempted to do so. Rooney has now said she can no longer sell her work in the UK and can’t visit because she risks imprisonment. A round of applause, please, for the brave British government for arresting thousands of people, many of whom are pensioners, for their Palestine Action support and protecting us from dangerous people like Rooney. Meanwhile, the British Museum is rolling out the red carpet for Igor Tulchinsky, a billionaire who reportedly funded an illegal Israeli settlement in the West Bank.
Iranian woman given death sentence for ‘blasphemy’ in social media post
Twenty-three-year-old Najmeh Amini has been sentenced to death on charges of “sab ol-nabi” (insulting the prophet). Death sentences for blasphemy are relatively rare, but rights groups have warned that Iranian authorities are increasingly using capital punishment to quash dissent.
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Katie Zacharia is out as press secretary after five days
Oh, dear! She didn’t even get her 15 minutes of fame; her disastrous first press briefing only lasted 14 minutes. Maybe Trump should replace her with a humanoid robot.
The week in pawtriarchy
If you desperately need a palate cleanser now, I recommend the Guardian’s week in wildlife photographs. I particularly enjoyed the photo of the black crested gibbon and its thousand-yard stare, which pretty much mirrors my expression all week. Hope you ape-preciate it.
