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Are you worried that Meta will soon read your direct messages on Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp? Some social media posts erroneously claim the company is changing its privacy policies to allow for widespread monitoring, but the upcoming change will instead allow the company to monitor your interactions with its Meta AI chatbot.
The change, which takes effect on Dec. 16, is intended to better “personalize content and ads recommendations” across its services. An example given by Meta says if you talk to the AI chatbot about a topic such as hiking, “you might start seeing recommendations for hiking groups, posts from friends about trails, or ads for hiking boots.”
Meta also highlights how this is similar to other features on its platforms. For example, if you watch an Instagram Reel about hiking, it would then know to highlight similar content in the future, or it may influence which ads you see.
Some viral social media posts have claimed this change will instead provide access to all your direct messages. A post from the Instagram account HustleWithChip, which has over 238,000 likes, says, “Meta will start reading your DMs on December 16. Every conversation. Every photo. Every voice message. Fed into AI. Used for Profit.”
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In a comment provided to Snopes, a spokesperson for Meta said, “We do not use the content of your private messages with friends and family to train our AIs unless you or someone in the chat chooses to share those messages with our AIs. This also isn’t new, nor is it part of this Dec. 16 privacy policy update.”
The brand says it only reads end-to-end encrypted messages if one of the parties involved reports it. Meta’s Messenger policy reads, “End-to-end encrypted messages and calls ensure only you and the people you’re communicating with can see or listen to what is sent, and no one else, not even Meta, can do so.” The WhatsApp policy includes a similar section.
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