If you're a European user of any of Meta's services, take heart. The company has announced an important change to how it handles publicly shared data. This applies to platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or Threads—and yes, your content. It now plans to use this data to train its generative artificial intelligence models. And if you don't agree, you have until May 27th to let the company know by filling out a special online form.
With this step, Meta is practically saying: “If you don’t hear back, we’ll take it as consent.” Even though it’s such a sensitive matter as using photos, captions, comments, or questions sent through Meta AI to improve robotic brains. The exception remains WhatsApp, the content of which is not affected by this change.
Silent consent? Not necessarily forever
However, it is fair to add that even after this date it will be possible to opt out of training AI models. The option to fill out the aforementioned form will remain available even after that, but you will no longer be sure that your data has not been at least partially processed. Meta itself promises that it will send a confirmation email to anyone who expresses their disagreement, and at the same time will stop using their publicly shared information and interactions with Meta AI functions to train its smart algorithms. This objection automatically applies to all accounts that the user has linked to Meta.
You could be interested in
But it is not 100% protection
But submitting the form doesn't mean complete immunity. Meta has left some loopholes in its rules - for example, if your name or photo appears in a picture that someone else has shared publicly, the tech giant can use it further. The same goes for mentions in public comments. Children under 18 and all private communication between adults in "friends and family" conversations are completely excluded from this change.
In other words – if you don’t want your public content to become fodder for digital neuroMeta, we recommend that you do not wait and fill out the form as soon as possible. You can find the link to it below, but the only mandatory item in the form is the email address you used to register. Facebookregistered with or Instagram.
The form to object to the use of your data for AI Meta training can be found here
Hello, is there any way to undo this objection? Something on FB stopped working for me, I would like to check if it is related to submitting the objection. My objection was granted, but I can't find if this step can be undone to verify the problem.