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SOCIAL MEDIA COMPANY Meta has said that it will start using publicly available content from European users to train its artificial intelligence models.
The company, which owns Facebook and Instagram, as well as popular messaging app WhatsApp, said it would train its AI systems using public posts and comments shared by adult users in the EU.
“People’s interactions with Meta AI — like questions and queries — will also be used to train and improve our models,” the company said in a blog post.
Meta is making the move after launching its Meta AI assistant last month for European users, long after it rolled out to the US and other major markets.
Earlier this month, the AI chatbot became visible for many Irish users on their WhatsApp. It is also being rolled out to Facebook Messenger. The chatbot was previously said to have been trained only by users’ interactions with said chatbot, while now its resources for training has expanded out to publicly available content shared outside of this.
The company said it will not use private messages to train its AI model and repeated its point that it is following the example of rivals Google and OpenAI, “both of which have already used data from European users to train their AI models”.
Meta said it will start notifying users in the EU about the training, and will include a link to a form where they can object at any time.
“We’ll honour all objection forms,” the company said.
The AI’s training by use of publicly posted content was previously hindered by concerns within the EU regarding users’ data privacy.
Social media site X, which has its own AI tool Grok, had an investigation launched last week into its methods of training the AI by use of users’ data by Ireland’s Data Protection Commission.
The inquiry’s purpose is to determine whether the personal data Grok used to train was lawfully processed, the DPC said, and will examine its compliance with GDPR and issues of transparency and lawfulness in its training.
Includes reporting by Press Association
I don’t have Facebook anymore, I don’t miss it.
But I do have WhatsApp.
If it is hinted that Facebook is using my private messaging on WhatsApp in a manner that I disagree with I will get rid of WhatsApp also.
Zuckerberg comes across as a bell end. Thinking he can do whatever he wants.
His company has made nothing but mistakes in the last 5 years. Hopefully Facebook and its ilk will die soon.
@Patrick Kavanagh: it clearly says “public content”.
@Concerned Driver:
Yep, that’s what they say. But for some reason I and most people don’t believe them.
@Patrick Kavanagh: few years ago i started getting emails about my facebook
account being tried to access it from crazy ip address
deleted it and msngr
haven’t missed it
although through messenger i met a cousin none of our family members had known about since she was adopted and found me through this platform, we have a fantastic friendship since so its not all bad
@Concerned Driver: and it clearly will ‘change’.
@John Duggan: a very rare positive case, that doesn’t justify the millions of cases of harm these apps are having on mankind.
Meta = sc um of the internet. And yes before anyone mentions, same goes for X/Twitter.
I hope the look and see function comes to the meta glasses, this is a game changer for us that are blind in accessing the visual world IE reading menus, bus timetables, items on shelves in shops etc and all this without taking a very expensive phone out of your pocket.
Newsflash they are already have our data and this announcement is just makingnit “official”, but if you’re censored or shadow banned you don’t need to worry…
Within rules and T&C, I will reactivate my facebook accounts and post very crafted messages.
@ben wu: Also, pretty sure that under EU GDPR rules, this is not acceptable by Meta, nor would be how I’d respond.
I dont want this app, didn’t ask for it and yet it’s been installed on my device. It’s overreach and I want it uninstalled. Google search will do me fine.
@Niall Whyte: same thoughts here, I will never use it.
“You will bow down before us and worship your new gods, puny humans!”
Going to be a very F’ed up psyco AI.
As if Zuck and his mate Mosseri (the narcissistic clown he put in charge of Instagram) are going to care about what their users think, or what the law says..
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