What the Tech: Meta is using your personal information to train its AI engine
By JAMIE TUCKER Consumer Technology Reporter
There’s a viral post circulating on social media that claims to prevent Meta from using your data to train its AI engine. Unfortunately, it’s a hoax. Sharing this post won’t protect your data and may even make you a target for scammers.
Millions of Facebook, Instagram, and Threads users are unhappy that Meta is using their personal information, including messages and photos, to train its AI model. This has led to a surge of misinformation and a desire for greater control over personal data.
Meta uses that data, including messages, photos, and other personal information to train its Meta AI model which helps the AI learn and improve its ability to understand and respond to human language and behavior.
The potential consequences of allowing Meta to use your data to train its AI engine include:
● A loss of privacy could potentially lead to your private information being exposed or used in ways you didn’t consent to.
● The AI model could use your data to create more targeted and personalized ads some users find intrusive.
● It’s difficult to predict how AI models will use and interpret data in the future.
But back to the posts.
The viral post spreading across platforms is similar to previous hoaxes promising to remove ads or change your feed. Copying and pasting this text does nothing to protect your privacy. In fact, it can make you vulnerable to cyber criminals who use these posts to identify gullible targets.
They may send you messages, or friend requests, or try to trick you into compromising your account.
If you’re concerned about Meta using your data to train its AI, you can opt-out. However, it’s not a simple process. You’ll need to navigate to your privacy settings and find the options for “Generative AI.” Alternatively, you can visit facebook.com/privacy/genai and submit a request asking Meta not to use your information.
Meta will review your request, but there’s no guarantee that your data will be completely removed from their AI training dataset.
I wish it was as easy as sharing a post. But it isn’t, so please stop sharing it.
