No, You Can’t Stop Meta Using Your Data via IG Story

Okay, let’s go over this again.

For all the folk out there who remain stringently dedicated to their avoidance of doing any actual research, or, like, learning how anything ever works, despite having all of the world’s knowledge available via the very devices that they’re posting to social media from, this:

This does nothing. It counts for zero, it serves no purpose, you can’t initiate a legal declaration with an IG Story.

It’s the equivalent of Michael Scott declaring bankruptcy by literally yelling it, this is a pointless exercise which has been debunked over and over again, in different form.

This exact message, while it has changed a little, started doing the rounds back in June, after Meta announced that it would be incorporating user content into its large language models, which power its AI systems.

And when celebrities like Rafel Nadal share this stuff, it obviously gains traction, but to be clear, the usage that you’re trying to oppose is something that you’ve actually already agreed to by ticking that “I agree” box on each app’s terms of service.

Meta has also explicitly stated that it’s going to use your public posts for AI training.

“We use publicly available online and licensed information to train AI at Meta, as well as the information that people have shared publicly on Meta’s products and services. This information includes things like public posts or public photos and their captions. In the future, we may also use the information people share when interacting with our generative AI features, like Meta AI, or with a business, to develop and improve our AI products. We don’t use the content of your private messages with friends and family to train our AIs.”

So your private posts and DMs are safe, but anything you share publicly in Meta’s apps, which Meta facilitates in distributing, it’s going to use to train its AI systems.

EU users can opt out of having their posts used for AI training, via the EU’s “Right to Object” option, but all other regions don’t have any such option as yet.

And posting some vaguely threatening message about “an attorney” will do absolutely nothing to change this.

As per Meta:

“Sharing this story does not count as a valid form of objection.”

It’s not a legal filing, it’s not an official document. It won’t signal to the algorithm that “this one knows,” which, in turn, will make Meta leave your stuff alone.

It’s nothing. It’s engagement theater. And even worse, it might actually signal to potential scammers that you’re gullible enough to believe hoaxes like this, marking you as a future target.

So, if you see your favorite celebrity post something like this, and you find yourself questioning whether it may actually be a valid form of legal defense, here’s what you should do instead: Go read about legal rights, read about copyright, go read the app user agreement, and what you agreed to when you signed up.

Go check out the EU Right to Object, and consider how you might want to support political candidates discussing similar in your nation.

The info is all there, the internet provides access to all the great resources of the world, so that you can educate yourself on the actual logic behind anything, as opposed to what a single social post says.

Social media is made for quick-hitting content, it’s not good for complex political or legal matters. That’s why it’s been a disaster for political discourse, because too many people read a single salacious post, and it changes their perspective, whether it’s true or not.