Scrolling through Instagram, no doubt you've come across the 'Goodbye Meta AI' post popping up everywhere.
Around 600,000 people have been sharing the message including big celebrity names like James McAvoy and Ashley Tisdale, as well as former NFL player Tom Brady.
It claims that those who have reposted the image deny Meta the right to use their data to train artificial intelligence (AI) models.
The viral re-shared post reads: "Goodbye Meta AI. Please note an attorney has advised us to put this on, failure to do so may result in legal consequences.
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"As Meta is now a public entity all members must post a similar statement.
"If you do not post at least once it will be assumed you are okay with them using your information and photos.
"I do not give Meta or anyone else permission to use any of my personal data, profile information or photos."
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But here’s the thing - it’s not true. It’s actually a hoax.
Posting or sharing that message doesn’t stop Meta from using your data in that it's not a valid form of objection to Meta's data policies.
In fact, many of these messages have been flagged as "false information" by Lead Stories, one of Meta's third-party fact-checking sites.
If you want to opt out of Facebook and Instagram using your data for AI, you’ll need to go through the app account settings.
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To object via Facebook, head to your settings, click on Privacy Centre, and you will see an update about the 'AI at Meta experiences.' Here, there will be an option to 'object to the use of your information' for AI training.
Just follow the steps to submit a request.
It's a similar process for Instagram. Users can open up Settings, scroll down and select Privacy Centre and follow the objection request instructions from here.
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The sudden rise of these posts seems to be a public reaction to Meta’s previous announcement that it would use public posts on its platforms to help train its AI models.
It just so happened that Meta subtly updated their Privacy Policy to use publicly shared content for AI training from June 2024. By default, any images on user profiles can be used unless the user's objection is approved by Meta.
The Zuckerberg-founded company confirmed it would respect objections from users who opt out through their account settings.