The viral 'Goodbye Meta AI' post on people's Instagram Stories doesn't actually protect their data
Hundreds of thousands of users across all of Meta’s platforms are posting the same statement about wanting to protect their social media profiles from being used by the company and AI. But the reality is that this message doesn’t actually mean anything or protect anyone.
“Goodbye Meta AI,” the post begins. “As Meta is now a public entity all members must post a similar statement. If you do not post at least once it will be assumed you are okay with them using your information and photos. I do not give Meta or anyone else permission to use any of my personal data, profile information or photos.”
The “copypasta” — a term to describe a chunk of text copied and pasted all over the internet — seems to have started in early September. It’s also not the firsttime an inaccurate privacy copypasta has circulated on Meta. As recently as May, people were sharing a similarly worded post that said, “I hereby state that I do not give my permission to use any of my personal data or photos.”
Meta did not immediately respond to Yahoo News’ request for comment. The posts are now flagged as "false information" on Instagram Stories.
Can Meta use public posts from Instagram and Facebook to train AI?
Yes, Meta can use your public posts and photos to train its AI.
According to a press release from September 2023, users who agree to Meta’s terms and conditions do allow the company to use “publicly shared posts from Instagram and Facebook — including photos and text” to train its AI models. These posts do not include those that are private, including private messages with friends.
Users also cannot retroactively negate or opt out of any privacy or copyright terms they agree to when they sign up for their accounts. Meta being a publicly traded company also has no impact on users’ privacy rights as outlined in the terms and conditions.
Online privacy laws are not that strict in the United States, which is why Meta was allowed to start scraping public posts for AI training without notifying or warning users. In Europe, however, which has much stricter rules, users were notified ahead of time and given the option to opt out of the privacy policy, which allows Meta to use years of public posts and images to train its AI.
However, messages users exchange with Meta’s AI chatbot are retained and used in training generative AI.
Is this legal?
Facebook’s legal terms state, “If you share a photo on Facebook, you give us permission to store, copy, and share it with others.” Users agree to these terms when they make an account on Facebook or Instagram.
How can I protect my information from being used to train Meta’s AI?
There is no available way for U.S. users to stop Meta from scraping public posts. The only option is for users to make their accounts private, because Meta only pulls from publicly available posts.
