Meta’s New Privacy Policy Update
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has recently announced updates to its privacy policy. One significant change is the company's plan to utilize public posts, images, captions, comments, and Stories from Facebook and Instagram to train its artificial intelligence (AI) models. This move has sparked concerns among privacy advocates and users alike, and in the social media marketing world.
Essentially, everyone’s social media posts will be used by Meta to start training their AI models. What implications does this have for brands and users on the platforms? Don’t panic, we’ve got all the info here for you.
Meta To Train New AI Models
Although the new policy will see a few minor changes to users privacy, the most widely reported update is the company's plan to use users data to train their AI models. “To properly serve our […] communities, the models that power AI at Meta need to be trained on relevant information that reflects the diverse languages, geography and cultural references of the people […] who will use them” says Meta.
“To do this, we want to train our large language models that power AI features using the content that people […] have chosen to share publicly on Meta’s products and services”. It’s important to note that what Meta refers to as “public content” includes posts, comments, photos and other content posed on it’s social media platforms by brands and user over the age of 18. Apparently private messages will strictly not be used in the training data.
Read the full privacy policy here.
For brands and businesses on Instagram and Facebook, this means your photos, posts and captions will be used to train Meta’s AI models. In the era of BTS and hypervisibility, the update has sparked a debate around privacy and data usage.
Implications For Brands Online
For brands and businesses that maintain a presence on Instagram, this policy change could have many potential implications. There are over 200 million businesses on Instagram. And, according to the platform, 90% of people on Instagram follow a business. (sourced from HubSpot.)
With Meta using public content to train its AI models, there is a possibility that the company could gain insights into user behavior, preferences, and engagement patterns. This information could potentially be used to improve targeted advertising or develop new AI-powered features for businesses on Instagram.
However, there are also concerns about the potential misuse of this data. Brands may worry about their intellectual property rights being infringed upon or their content being used in ways they did not intend or consent to.
Opting Out?
If you’re in Europe, you’ll get an option to opt out, an option the rest of the world won’t be able to access.
For individuals and brands alike, Meta has provided an option to opt out of having their public content used for AI training. Here are the steps to follow if you want to opt out:
Instagram:
Open the Instagram app and go to your profile
Tap the three-line menu icon in the top-right corner
Select "About"
Tap "Privacy Policy"
In the first body of text, click the link that says “Right To Object”.
Fill out the short form. Be sure to verify your email address by following the instructions on screen.
Facebook
Visit this page https://www.facebook.com/privacy/policy/
Make sure you’re logged into the Facebook account you’d like to opt out from before clicking the link.
In the first body of text, click the link that says “Right To Object”
Fill out the short form - be sure to follow the instructions and verify your email address after.
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