Don’t Let Meta Use Your Data and Posts to Train Its AI

The company said it will use publicly available content from its social media platforms, such as Instagram and Facebook, to train its foundation models. However, it will not use private user messages or content from accounts of users under 18.

Meta says it needs to train its models on public content otherwise its AI “won’t accurately understand important regional languages, cultures or trending topics on social media.”

Currently, there are no explicit rules in the EU that prohibit companies from using user data to train AI models. However, EU data protection laws, specifically the GDPR, require businesses to obtain explicit consent from users before using their data. Businesses are also obligated to be transparent about how they’re using user data, providing the option to withdraw consent at any time.

Currently, only EU users are able to opt out. Meta says if Europeans opt out, they will be “ill-served by AI models that are not informed by Europe’s rich cultural, social and historical contributions.”

Other companies developing foundation AI are doing the same, including OpenAI and Google, however, Meta claims it’s being more transparent than its rivals. The company says it has sent billions of notifications and emails to European users informing them they can opt out.

Stefano Fratta, Meta’s global engagement director for privacy policy wrote in a blog post. “Our approach is more transparent and offers easier controls than many of our industry counterparts already training their models on similar publicly available information,”

“Models may be trained on people’s publicly shared posts, but it’s not a database of each person’s information nor is it designed to identify any individual,” Fratta said. “Rather, these models are built by looking at people’s information to identify patterns, like understanding colloquial phrases or local references, not to identify a specific person or their information.”

Meta’s transparency announcement comes as the company was the subject of 11 complaints by Noyb over its data handling practices related to AI.

Noyb, a nonprofit European Center for Digital Rights filed the complaints, asking several EU Member States to launch an urgency procedure available through the GDPR to stop the company from using user data before the June 26 deadline. They claim that Meta will use all public user data that it has collected since 2007 for its future AI efforts.

How can you stop meta from using your data to train ai models
For United States Users (and other countries without strict data privacy laws. If you’re uncomfortable with Meta using your personal information and intellectual property to train its AI models, you can consider opting out.

Unfortunately, there’s no foolproof way to prevent Meta from using your data for AI training if you’re in the US or similar regions. However, you can set your account settings to private to minimize the risk of public social media posts being used.

Facebook Account:
Log in to your account. (easier to do from a computer rather than your phone)
Access the new privacy policy.
Click on “Learn more about your right to object” at the top of the page.

Alternatively, click your account icon, select “Settings and privacy,” then go to “Privacy center.” Under “How Meta uses information for generative AI models and features,” click “Right to object.”

Instagram Users:
Open the Instagram app.
Tap your profile icon.
Navigate to the hamburger icon > Settings and Privacy > Help > Help Center.
Under “Featured Topics,” choose “About AIs on Instagram” 1.

Important to note: META makes “adjustments” to it privacy and data use policies on a regular basis and, as users, we are notified when changes are made that “by continuing to use their service(s)” we are essentially agreeing to the changes.

Meta reviews objection requests according to relevant data protection laws, but guarantees are not provided. The US and many other countries around the world do not have data protection laws on the books.

Thanks to The Hacker News
https://thehackernews.com/2024/06/meta-halts-ai-training-on-eu-user-data.html