Can I Opt Out of Meta’s A.I. Scraping on Instagram and Facebook? Sort Of.

Last month, Meta announced that it was going to expand its artificial intelligence services around the world, and the company let users in Europe know that it would use their public information to train its A.I. services starting on June 26.

The notifications sent to users of Facebook and Instagram in Europe, letting them know that their public posts could be used to train the A.I. services, including Meta’s chatbot, prompted privacy concerns and backlash as users wondered where the policy change would next be in effect.

But for those living in the United States, where online privacy laws are not as strict, Meta A.I. has already been using public posts to train its A.I. It’s unclear where else Meta might expand the program.

Privacy watchdogs have raised concerns about the data usage, and a lack of specifics about what Meta will do with people’s information. But Meta says it is complying with privacy laws, and that the information it is gathering will make services more relevant to the users in a given region.

Here’s what to know about Meta’s A.I. chatbot and how you can opt out of sharing your information.

Meta’s chatbot is its answer to ChatGPT.

Meta A.I. is a smart assistant software powered by artificial intelligence, available on apps including Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram — it can be used in feeds, chat and search. Similar to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Apple’s Siri or Amazon’s Alexa, it is designed to respond to almost any prompt a user gives it.

For example, you might ask: Who’s the greatest tennis player of all time?

“The eternal debate!” Meta A.I. responded to that query. “While opinions may vary, many experts and fans consider Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic to be among the greatest tennis players of all time.”