Meta to Restart AI Training on Europeans’ Public Facebook and Instagram Posts
Meta will once again begin training on public posts from European users of Facebook and Instagram in a bid to sharpen its artificial intelligence (AI) tools, marking a restart of efforts that were previously paused amid privacy backlash.
On Monday, Meta — which operates both Facebook and Instagram – announced that it will begin training its AI models using content shared publicly by adults across the European Union’s 27 member countries.
“People’s interactions with Meta AI — like questions and queries — will also be used to train and improve our models,” the company explains in a blog post.
This shift comes shortly after Meta introduced its Meta AI assistant to European users, a launch that lagged behind its earlier rollout in the United States and other global markets.
The Associated Press reports that Meta’s ambitions in AI had been stalled by the EU’s rigorous data protection rules, which grant individuals tight control over how their personal information is collected and applied. The company’s initial plans were met with resistance from NOYB, a Vienna-based privacy group headed by activist Max Schrems. The group has urged regulators across Europe to intervene before Meta can advance its next round of AI training.
According to Meta, a collective of EU privacy regulators reviewed the company’s proposed methods last December and “affirmed” that the original approach complied with legal standards.
The company is keen to stress that private messages will not be used to feed its AI systems, and also highlights that its competitors have already walked a similar path. Meta refers to Google and OpenAI when it says “both have already used data from European users to train their AI models.”
To meet transparency requirements, Meta will soon begin alerting EU users about its AI training plans and offering a straightforward way to opt-out.
“We’ll honor all objection forms,” the company adds.
Trouble for Meta on the Other Side of the Atlantic
Meanwhile in the United States, CEO Mark Zuckerberg took the stand in a Washington, DC, courtroom to face a landmark antitrust trial that could force Meta to sell off Instagram and the messaging app WhatsApp.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) says Meta, which already owned Facebook, bought Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014 to eliminate competition before those platforms could grow into serious rivals — establishing what it claims is an illegal monopoly in the social media landscape.
Over the next two months, the U.S. government will try to prove that Meta used its dominance to squash potential threats instead of competing fairly.
Image credits: Header photo licensed via Depositphotos.
