11 steps to keep Meta from stealing your data to train AI
I joined Facebook in 2008, when my older son’s elementary school urged us to do so. Kids were being bullied online, we were told. To be a good parent, you needed to be on top of this, especially now that Facebook was finally allowing the oldsters to join. That same year, my publisher also urged those of us launching books to join Facebook. They weren’t sure back then why it was important, they just thought it might be, and they were correct. After I posted about my 2008 novel on Facebook, it immediately sold out its first printing. Whoa! Cool. A new way of getting the word out. Then, in 2011, my son’s life was saved by three friends on Facebook who diagnosed his Kawasaki disease from the photos I’d posted online, and I was hooked. Social media, I thought, was a greater good. I even went on the Today Show, when they asked, to share our story.
Fast forward to today. Facebook has led to all sorts of horrors, including an orange-haired, coup-instigating felon in the White House; Russian interference in our elections; and elder scams a plenty. I’m embarrassed to admit how much raw material of my life I’ve handed over to the company now called Meta, which includes Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Threads. Especially given that, starting on June 26th, unless you make a formal request to opt-out, Meta will be stealing and scraping your data to train AI. Apparently, they have run out of other sources to feed the beast.
