Looks like those copypasta stories about Facebook’s rights to your information were right all along.
Today, I got a notification that they’re planning to role out AI features and will train it on “Information you’ve shared on our Products and services”, i.e. all photos, captions, messages, etc. we’ve ever sent on Facebook.
They have a page called “Object to Your Information Being Used for AI at Meta”; I recommend reading it and objecting:
https://www.facebook.com/help/contact/6359191084165019
I sent them the following as an objection:
I do not want Facebook/Meta to use any of my information for AI training. I own all usage rights to my photos/videos/written text, and do not grant Facebook/Meta or related enterprises the rights to use them for AI-related purposes, including and not limited to training, aggregation, etc.
I received the following just now from Facebook:
Facebook has opted my stuff out of their GenAI’s training data
I recommend you do the same.
Cheers, Mark Zuckerberg.
The Copypasta
You’ve probably seen a version of the following nonsense posted at some point by older relatives if you have a Facebook account:
Don’t forget tomorrow starts the new Facebook (aka…new name, META) rule where they can use your photos. Don’t forget the Deadline is today!!!
I do not give Facebook or any entities associated with Facebook permission to use my pictures, information, messages or posts, both past and future. With this statement, I give notice to Facebook it is strictly forbidden to disclose, copy, distribute, or take any other action against me based on this profile and/or its contents. The information: The violation of privacy can be punished by law
NOTE: Facebook is now a public entity. All members must post a note like this.
If you prefer, you can copy and paste this version. If you do not publish a statement at least once it will be tacitly allowing the use of your photos, as well as the information contained in the profile status updates.
DO NOT SHARE. Copy and paste.
Their new algorithm chooses the same few people - about 25 - who will read your posts. Therefore: Hold your finger down anywhere in this post and “copy” will pop up. Click “copy”. Then go to your page, start a new post and put your finger anywhere in the blank field. “Paste” will pop up and click paste This will bypass the system.
It is a meme. Posting that on your timeline does nothing, other than keep the game going.
However, now that ChatGPT and other generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) models are becoming commonplace and are all the rage among the tech cultists of Silicon Valley, a lot of the big corps are wanting to make their own. Hence Facebook jumping on the bandwagon.
Facebook has always been a creepy company. It tracks user activity on non-Facebook websites via cookies for advertising purposes 1 2; Apple made an attempt to stop this on its iPhones in iOS 14.5 3. It is a descendant of Facemash, a hot girl ranking website written by Mark Zuckerberg while studying at Harvard 4. It is written with content-feed algorithms that are designed to be addictive 5 6.
In case Facebook deletes it
In case Facebook deletes its opt-out page, or changes the wording, here is what it said around 8pm 25 May 2024. It is difficult to archive the page to the Internet Archive or Archive.today, because it requires a Facebook login to read what it says.
Object to Your Information Being Used for AI at Meta
You have the right to object to Meta using the information you’ve shared on our Products and services to develop and improve AI at Meta. You can submit this form to exercise that right.
AI at Meta is our collection of generative AI features and experiences, like Meta AI and AI Creative Tools, along with the models that power them.
Information you’ve shared on our Products and services could be things like:
- Posts
- Photos and their captions
- The messages you send to an AI
We do not use the content of your private messages with friends and family to train our AIs.
We’ll review objection requests in accordance with relevant data protection laws. If your request is honored, it will be applied going forward.
We may still process information about you to develop and improve AI at Meta, even if you object or don’t use our Products and services. For example, this could happen if you or your information:
- Appear anywhere in an image shared on our Products or services by someone who uses them
- Are mentioned in posts or captions that someone else shares on our Products and services
To learn more about the other rights you have related to information you’ve shared on Meta Products and services, visit our Privacy Policy.
Country of residence: (Required)
Email address (Required)
Please tell us how this processing impacts you. (Required)
Please provide any additional information that could help us review your objection. (Optional)
End note
I originally started this website (well, [it’s predecessor https://robot-one.blogspot.co.uk/) because I was posting interesting things I was doing to Facebook, and then realised, “Wait, I’m contributing to someone else’s software ecosystem.” I didn’t trust Facebook, and wanted control over the projects and photos I shared. I had avoided making an account all through high-school and only signed up in 2012ish. (Can you believe Facebook was once popular with teenagers?!)
This website is now running off Github, and Microsoft is probably training its Copilot GenAI off the source code. But that’s computer code, for machines and now by machines. Not too bad. I can’t think of any non-creepy uses Facebook might have for our data by training its GenAI on it.
Note that I will never use GenAI to write articles, stories, or art for this website. I pride myself as something of a creative artist, writer and designer. I may use GenAI to help with the website code, which is meant to be machine-readable, but nothing intended for humans on this website will ever be made with ChatGPT or related software.
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https://www.wired.com/story/ways-facebook-tracks-you-limit-it/ ↩︎
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https://www.consumerreports.org/electronics-computers/privacy/how-facebook-tracks-you-even-when-youre-not-on-facebook-a7977954071/ ↩︎
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https://www.macrumors.com/2020/12/16/apple-responds-to-facebook-tracking-criticism/ ↩︎
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https://www.metro.us/everything-to-know-about-facemash-the-site-zuckerberg-created-in-college-to-rank-hot-women/ ↩︎
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https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-17/eu-says-instagram-and-facebook-are-too-addictive-in-probe/103859680 ↩︎
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