Meta has announced a big change to its privacy policy, and you may not like it at all. Basically, starting on December 16, it will use the content of your interactions with its generative AI features to personalize content and ad recommendations across its platforms. Whether it’s a voice chat or a text exchange with Meta AI, it will be used to “improve the recommendations we provide for people across our platforms so they’re more likely to see content they’re actually interested in”, and “less of the content they’re not”.
An example Meta gives is that if you talk to Meta AI about hiking, you may then start to see recommendations for hiking groups, posts from friends about trails, or ads for hiking boots. All of this applies on both Facebook and Instagram, and don’t forget that WhatsApp’s AI features are also powered by Meta AI.
You will be officially notified about this change starting on October 7. You will not be able to opt out of this, but you will still be able to adjust the content and ads you see, as you can already. Thankfully, when you talk to Meta AI about topics like your religious views, sexual orientation, political views, health, racial or ethnic origin, philosophical beliefs, or trade union membership, these conversations won’t be used to show you ads. But those are the only exclusions that will apply.
The company has revealed that more than one billion people use Meta AI every month, so this privacy change will affect about one in eight people on the planet.
