Concerns Rise With Instagram Users About AI Extracting Their Photos

Instagram feeds are now filled with unfamiliar messages claiming users’ ownership of their posts and images, both past and future.

This wave of declarations is driven by growing concerns over artificial intelligence. Meta’s expansion of AI technology, aimed at keeping up to speed with rivals, has prompted backlash from some users who fear their content is being used for AI training efforts without their consent.

Unfortunately, these posts may have already been absorbed into Meta’s AI systems, making any new objections potentially too late.

Nicole Morris, a professor at Emory University’s School of Law, said, “If someone says in a post that they own the rights to future posts, that has no legal teeth whatsoever.” She added, “You don’t have a copyright on a work that doesn’t exist. It’s not like property, where you’re going to be able to deed your land to your heirs. But a) people don’t read and b) people don’t know the full legal ramifications and rules.”

Resembling the copy-and-paste messages that have circulated since social media’s inception, these posts range from declarations prohibiting Facebook permission to charge accounts to refusing the use of their data in university research. Despite the variety, these statements are unproductive.

Instagram’s terms of service declare users’ ownership of their photos, yet using any Meta service like Instagram or Facebook grants Meta a broad license. This license, which lasts until the user deletes their account, allows Meta to “host, use, distribute, modify, run, copy, publicly perform or display, translate, and create derivative works of your content.”

Privacy laws concerning online data in the U.S. are lenient, allowing Meta to use posts to train its AI models. However, European regulations are more stringent. Meta recently informed its European users that it plans to begin using their public information for AI training starting at the end of June.

In Europe, stricter EU laws provide users with the ability to opt out of Meta’s AI training using their public information. Meanwhile, options for U.S. users are more limited, lacking the direct opt-out feature that Europe has. However, users can strengthen privacy by setting their accounts to private and deleting stored details Meta’s AI has accumulated through the command “/reset-all-ais” in the chat window.

In a news release that came out on June 10, 2024, Meta (the parent company of Facebook and Instagram) said it was “working hard to build cutting edge AI technology for Europeans that reflects their languages, geography and cultural references in the same way as other regions in the world.”

In response, many social media users raised concerns about Meta’s revised privacy policy, which involves using their data for AI training.

Mirroring the actions of Google and OpenAI, Meta said, “Since 22 May, we’ve sent more than two billion in-app notifications and emails to people in Europe to explain what we’re doing. These notifications contain a link to an objection form that gives people the opportunity to object to their data being used in our AI modelling efforts.”