by
Block Party
August 1, 2024
On June 26, 2024, Meta updated its privacy policy to allow the company to use your personal information on Meta-related services (like Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram and Threads) to train its AI. Under the new policy, Meta will use your public Facebook posts, Instagram photos and captions, data from third-party services, and any chats you’ve with Facebook’s AI chatbot to train its large language models (LLMs). Meta says it won't use your private messages or anything you've posted privately; however, it will use user data from as far back as 2007.
Chris Cox, Meta's chief product officer, explained to Bloomberg what kinds of data are used. "We don't train on private stuff, we don't train on stuff people share with their friends. We do train on things that are public." In other words, your posts and pictures and videos — anything you’ve uploaded and shared to Meta’s platforms publicly — are fair game.
We likely only know about Meta’s AI training initiatives thanks to the European Union’s stricter privacy legislation, the General Data Protection Regulation online privacy law, which forces companies to disclose how they acquire, process, and retain your data. It also requires them to offer opt-outs.
When accessed from within the European Union or the United Kingdom, Meta's page "How Meta uses information for generative AI models and features" explains that users have "the right to object to information you've shared on Meta's Products and services being used to develop and improve AI at Meta."
On the Facebook help page to opt out, you will have to enter details including your country, email address, the reason why you’re opting out, and some additional information to support your request. Then, Meta will email you a one-time password (OTP) that you'll enter to confirm.
Finally, you’ll get a confirmation message stating that Meta will review your submission as soon as possible. Though it shouldn’t be the case per the GDPR, that means it’s ultimately up to Meta to decide whether you can opt out. However, some users say they’ve had their requests rejected.
The short answer is no.
Dozens of opt-out tutorials for American Meta users — like this one — immediately sprang up in the wake of the news of Meta’s AI training plans, but users quickly noted that Meta was changing its opt out messaging and pages to make it more difficult for users to request to opt out. "Meta is apparently trying to make opting out of their AI training impossible. I saw a vid on how to opt out from 20 hours ago and they've already changed the landing page layout. I can't even do what a comment from 9 hrs ago suggested bc that's gone too," one X user commented.
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