This one is still relevant after all these years, I guess.
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Your Meta AI Chats Will Soon Influence the Ads You See
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I'm verbally talking about plumbing with a few people at work one day. two days later plumbing ads pop up. deactivated meta after than. get f***** zuck
I don’t use any chat AIs, let alone Meta AIs; so they can do whatever they want for all I care.
If you've been using Meta AI in Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, or Messenger, you might want to stop. Starting later this year, Meta plans to use your generative AI conversations to personalize content and tailor ad recommendations.
Text exchanges and voice conversations with Meta AI will be used to personalize posts, reels, ads, and more. Meta says that incorporating AI conversations will help the company improve its recommendations so that people are "more likely to see content they're actually interested in."
Meta likens using AI conversations to tailoring recommendations based on the content that people interact with on Facebook and Instagram. If you converse with AI about hiking, for example, Meta will show ads for hiking boots, as it would if you liked a hiking-related page.
There is no way to opt out of Meta's AI-based ad targeting, but Meta claims that users can adjust the content and ads they're seeing with Ad Preferences and feed controls. With Ad Preferences, you can limit ads from specific topics or block advertisers one by one, but you can't choose not to let Meta access your AI conversations. Interactions with Meta AI are used across Meta products that have been added to the same Accounts Center.
With no opt-out feature, the only way to prevent Meta from using your AI conversations for content and ad targeting purposes is not to use the AI in the first place.
Meta says that sensitive topics like sexual orientation, political views, health, racial or ethnic origin, philosophical beliefs, or trade union membership are not used for ad targeting purposes. Conversations that take place before December 16 won't be used.
Meta plans to start using AI for personalization on December 16, 2025, and customers will receive in-product notifications and emails before it happens. Data will be used for personalization in most countries around the world, though not in the EU, UK, and South Korea for the time being.
Article Link: Your Meta AI Chats Will Soon Influence the Ads You See
I had a an FB account for about 3 weeks many years ago...I didn't like their privacy practices then, plus I had far better things to do with my life than to spend time doom scrolling through posts about basically nothing. Glad it's way behind me…and given this development even more glad.
Don’t worry, they have bought your data anyway…And gotten cookies onto your computer.Phew! I've never used Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, or Messenger, and have no intention of doing so.
Panic over
I've been suspicious that all our devices are listening and influencing our ad results for many years. The only "listening" device I have (that I'm aware of) is my iPhone. In the past I've had friends over and we've talked about random things that they're interested in (and I'm not, like say a pottery hobby) and then within a few days the ads I'm seeing on webpages suddenly start showing pottery items on Amazon. It doesn't happen all the time, but it's happened enough, and with things that I've never searched for in my browser history, that it's got me suspicious that something is listening. I do have an LG TV which could also be listening (but that's usually off, and I've disabled the voice command in the menu). That's why I'm suspicious it's my iPhone giving up the data.
I’d be more concerned about other AI chatbots who aren’t being explicit about what they’re doing with your data. Meta and Google both have always been taken for granted that ads were going to be part of the revenue stream. Think in the end they all will use our data for ad services in one way or another. Probably get ads popping up into chats on free tiers later.
Nobody in their right mind would use Meta AI except by accident because Zuck puts it everywhere.
If advertisers could source your microphone, they would. They WANT to. Do some apps do it? Probably. Google and Apple listen for your voice to trigger assistants. So technically they are listening all the time!
But here's the thing - your friends my be interested in a hobby you are not. But they are over at your house on your wifi (and in your specific geo target).
The ads are shown to you because people with an interest of pottery and web/search/purchase history of that (with some tabs probably still open) were on your network.
It works both ways. You can go to someone else's house and afterwards, get ads aimed at them on your device. Simply because you were in the same place. Grocery store reward cards, web history, search history, purchase history, cookies, geolocation, they are all assembled into a spiderweb of connected activity. These companies buy and sell info like this and bundle it, selling it to ad networks. Ad channels compete to have the best targeting.
What platforms like TheTradeDesk, Google, and Facebook can do would probably creep you out. The stuff that Facebook ads USED to do was definitely creepy. You could target someone by specific income tier, or by disease (aids, cancer, M.S, etc). They've since removed some of that targeting, but I promise they still know the info.
On top of that, companies are fighting cookie restrictions and privacy features of iPhones by doubling down on getting companies to share their info. I can't tell you how many times Facebook has asked to get us to implement their conversions API by getting access to our servers. Never gonna happen. IMO, it's just to feed coal into their AI ad targeting furnace. I'm sure it could help raise conversions/leads, but I'm sure they also use that data everywhere they can.
I see ads on streaming services aimed at treating my specific chronic disease. I did not put that info into Hulu, and my dumb streaming TV does not have a microphone. They are simply purchasing that targeting info (probably via TradeDesk if it's Hulu)
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Is this even a “feature” anybody would want to use? It seems like they are just using “AI” and “advertising” as an excuse to collect more personal data. It’s not even something someone would want to do on their own. It makes no sense except for Zuck’s greed.
I could totally see that...except that the majority of them do not have my WiFi password to join. Since I live in a very urban area with good cell signal, I'm rarely if ever asked for my WiFi because everyone seems to have unlimited plans and don't even think to ask to join my WiFi network.
Yeah just best not to interact with anything Meta related. I pay for no ads on Disney/Hulu and other services as well as use ad blockers. You can’t stop all the trash but all the effort does pay off. The only time I see ads are in live sporting events, if the game gets boring I just watch something else. As a parent it is a godsend to have no ads, nothing to influence young kids.
“If you've been using Meta AI in Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, or Messenger, you might want to stop.”
Or even just:
If you've been usingMeta AI in Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, or Messenger, you might want to stop.
Or even just:
If you've been using
My approach (above in bold)
I've finally done that in all ways other than occasionally needing to use a FB burner account for Marketplace buying/selling.
The only things I’ve ever asked Meta AI on WhatsApp (the only meta app i use) is why mark zuckerberg is such an awful person and how i could block and remove meta ai on WhatsApp. In true AI fashion the latter question was answered with incorrect information suggesting to select non existing options
I deleted Facebook and Instagram years ago.
No clue what Messenger is.
Annoyingly, school parents and home owners association all use WhatsApp in Europe.
Well, I barely use it (and it has access to nothing… contacts, camera, microphone,
Photos, files,…no access for the Zuck.)
No clue what Messenger is.
Annoyingly, school parents and home owners association all use WhatsApp in Europe.
Well, I barely use it (and it has access to nothing… contacts, camera, microphone,
Photos, files,…no access for the Zuck.)
EXACTLY what I expected when I first started seeing that stuff. Do not trust anything from meta.
Yeah, right. Meta already said it would ditch ads targeting sensitive stuff like health, sexuality, religion, ethnicity, and politics back in January 2022. The idea was to avoid discrimination and creepy exploitation of personal data (https://www.reuters.com/technology/...t-options-advertisers-some-topics-2021-11-09/).
But, surprise, sensitive ads didn’t really disappear. Some HIV treatment ads were still aimed at users with interests tied to homosexuality and HIV (https://themarkup.org/newsletter/ci...emove-sensitive-ads-heres-what-it-left-behind).
On top of that, 67% of users were still tagged with interests linked to sensitive info, covering 22% of the global population, and GDPR barely made a dent in the EU (https://arxiv.org/abs/1907.10672).
So yeah, Meta said one thing, but sensitive ad targeting is basically still happening...