[HN Gopher] Used Meta AI, now Instagram is using my face on ads ...
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Used Meta AI, now Instagram is using my face on ads targeted at me
Author : amrrs
Score : 144 points
Date : 2025-01-06 20:44 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (old.reddit.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (old.reddit.com)
| lulzron wrote:
| Things that feel illegal will probably become illegal someday,
| but they think it's fine because, for now, it's not illegal.
| taco_emoji wrote:
| > will probably become illegal someday
|
| Probably not for four years, at least
| npteljes wrote:
| Nah. Street View was also a big hubbub back then. People are
| not even mentioning it anymore.
|
| >Things that feel illegal will probably become illegal someday
|
| Also, if you think about this phrasing for just a second, this
| is the chilling effect. Suppressing expression due to the
| anticipation of negative outcomes.
| nicce wrote:
| That is the difference in the U.S. businesses vs. European.
|
| In Europe many companies think ethics even if is not illegal on
| paper.
|
| In the U.S. you need to get big before it is illegal, lobby for
| it and then pay fines. But fines are okay since you got big
| already.
| tsunamifury wrote:
| You must be joking right. This euro-superior tone that always
| pops up on here is delusional.
|
| Nestle. Shell Oil. I can go on... literally nothing about
| what you said is grounded in reality.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| I didn't know that nestle and shell had AI departments.
|
| Look, I'm not +1 the EU here, but having some level of
| legal protection against marauding corporations is good.
| Sure EU based companies are evil, but they can't be as
| abusive to normal people because they are constrained by a
| semi-functional legal system.
|
| The US used to have that as well, along with a functioning
| legislature.
| nicce wrote:
| I am not joking.
|
| "Move fast and break things" was even the motto of
| Zuckerberg back in day in Facebook. There are studies about
| it.
|
| Even Y Combinator has some history of admitting that they
| seek people like that:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2579990
|
| I particularly meant tech companies. Of course, you can
| find unethical businesses everywhere.
| ChocolateGod wrote:
| All the hate tech journalists gave the EU because Apple
| Intelligence isn't launched there was insane, yet this is
| what EU legislation is designed to avoid.
| slackfan wrote:
| Play stupid games (post private info online), win stupid prizes.
| segasaturn wrote:
| This isn't helpful or realistic. It's becoming more and more
| difficult to keep all your personal data private and function
| in society, which is all by design for companies like Meta.
| mt_ wrote:
| Exactly, and the OP is not bothered about the content that is
| around him, somehow for him that must have been generated from
| thin air.
| npteljes wrote:
| People are not born with knowledge, however trivial it seem
| after knowing it. Same thing with privilege: different
| perspectives are earned with experience, not something that
| we start with.
| redeux wrote:
| You've posted enough info here on HN for anyone to dox you (I
| won't). Just thought it was relevant to your comment.
| aithrowawaycomm wrote:
| The content of the ad seems a bit on-the-nose given how much of
| Instagram is devoted to onanistic preening...
| KaiserPro wrote:
| but its not an ad though? its meta-ai doing meta-ai things.
|
| Like if it was "buy this shit", or "your next location
| sponsored by bud lite" then yeah, but its not an advert.
| miltonlost wrote:
| "buy this shit" and "use this shit we made" is still an
| advert. Just because the person receiving the advert doesn't
| pay for the product themselves via cash and instead is paying
| via their personal data doesn't mean the post is not
| advertisement.
|
| The post is literally advertising MetaAI's product??? Do you
| know what an advert's definition is?
| KaiserPro wrote:
| When I saw the original link on bluesky, I didn't have time
| to look into it, I had assumed it was something like a post
| where a sponsor had paid meta to show a user a picture of
| said user in one of their adverts. Ie meta was being paid
| to whore out your likeness.
|
| > Do you know what an advert's definition is?
|
| according to this:
| https://www.dictionary.com/browse/advertisement its not.
|
| Look, I don't like meta any more than you do. But this is a
| service that is provided by them. Its not an advert, meta
| aren't making money from generating that user's likeness,
| or any other.
|
| I don't like GenAI, its going to ruin an industry I love,
| one I wanted to return to. When the bubble pops, its
| probably going to make me loose my job too. But this isn't
| an advert.
| carlosdp wrote:
| Maybe I'm in the minority here, but this is kinda cool! As long
| as the user data doesn't leave the Meta ecosystem (no reason to
| think it does right now, the ad in question here is from Meta
| itself), it's not a privacy concern since only you are being
| shown those unique ads with you in them.
|
| Even if other advertisers start using the system, as long as the
| generated resulting images are never shared with the advertisers
| and are unique to each user, its just a futuristic way to help
| you "imagine" what having XYZ product would be like, which is
| what most ads strive to do.
|
| People have knee-jerk reactions to anything to do with ads
| because of the privacy concerns of yesterday, understandably. But
| if you actually step back and think about this, there's no
| reduction in _privacy_ that I can see. If people are creeped out
| by it, I think they should maybe let people disable them with a
| setting.
|
| But in general, making ads more effective _without_ giving
| advertisers more data about us is a _great_ thing for the
| continuation of free amazing internet services!
| afavour wrote:
| Man, I absolutely cannot disagree more. If a service wants to
| use my face in an ad they need to ask me for permission first.
| The gradual erosion of user autonomy we've seen online over the
| past few decades never ceases to amaze me.
|
| > People have knee-jerk reactions to anything to do with ads
| because of the privacy concerns of yesterday, understandably.
|
| Can you elaborate on this? What were the privacy concerns of
| yesterday that we don't need to worry about today?
| mysterydip wrote:
| > If a service wants to use my face in an ad they need to ask
| me for permission first.
|
| But you granted us full unrestricted access when you agreed
| to page 58 section J of our latest terms of service. - meta
| lawyer somewhere
| carlosdp wrote:
| It's an ad _only you_ can see, I don 't see the harm.
|
| > What were the privacy concerns of yesterday that we don't
| need to worry about today?
|
| The web/internet is a hell of a lot more private today than
| 10 years ago. Third party cookies are basically gone, mobile
| tracking is going out the door with Apple leading that
| charge, there are tons of relatively popular browsers and
| extensions that reduce tracking even more, there's enough
| privacy legislation that big companies have had to re-
| architect to preserve privacy as much as possible by default.
|
| Hell, if we're just talking about Meta, they literally nuked
| a thriving third-party developer API ecosystem to appease
| people's privacy concerns, out right.
| unsnap_biceps wrote:
| If they use your picture to advertise to your friends, showing
| you in a nike shoe or whatever, that's still okay? It still
| wouldn't have left the Meta ecosystem.
| bandinobaddies wrote:
| They might create an AI-generated person who closely
| resembles your friend but not exactly. If they do it
| undetected, it could have a massive impact. Imagine an ad
| featuring someone who looks just like your crush. I really
| hope this gets banned before anyone tries it.
|
| This scenario reminds me of Amazon Prime's Live TV with
| hyper-targeted advertising. A friend who has it noticed that
| his ads revealed what he and his wife had browsed on Amazon.
| It was fun at times to see that we'd all been looking at the
| same items, but it also felt a bit too personal. Now he never
| turn on his TV whenever guests visit.
| carlosdp wrote:
| No, because that would be sharing your photo and not unique
| to you as a user. I also don't really see why anyone would
| want to do that...
| npteljes wrote:
| As much as I loathe ads, I actually agree with you. I think
| these are good points. Among others, it's a very important
| realization that just by properly using these services, so much
| of the privacy has been given up already. It's just that
| services are clever about this, same as how corrupt populists:
| they do the damage, but keep away the negative feedback as much
| as they can, hiding, delaying, projecting, doesn't matter, as
| long as people don't feel it.
|
| This is why this ad seems outrageous: it provides this
| feedback. Demonstrates just a little bit of the power that they
| have over the person. So the user immediately sobered up, maybe
| even vowed something to the opposite.
| hbn wrote:
| I'll play some defence for them here. You were playing with
| Meta's AI face tool, and now it's taken some results from that
| and swapped them in where ads would usually go. I'm assuming they
| don't do this if you just uploaded photos to Facebook/Instagram,
| you seemingly gave them a picture with the direct intent of them
| using it to make AI images.
|
| It doesn't seem that much different from when I'm typing a chat
| reply in Snapchat and it starts automatically suggesting stickers
| with mine and my friends' faces doing silly things with cartoon
| bodies. Or using my avatar to try and upsell me to their premium
| subscription. Don't give them a picture of your face to mess
| around with if you don't like them messing around using a picture
| of your face.
| matsemann wrote:
| I instantly revoked Facebook's access to my photos a few years
| back, when it had taken photos from my camera roll and put it
| into my feed with a "do you want to share this"? I was browsing
| on the subway, and did not expect a medical picture of me
| showing up for everyone there to see. And I realized facebook
| as well could do what they wanted with my pictures.
| ssivark wrote:
| For starters, how is it not a violation (eg. "personality
| rights") to use a person's likeness without permission?
|
| As a further example, do we really want insurance companies
| serving ads using near and dear ones as potential disaster
| victims? This is really getting out of hand.
| pta2002 wrote:
| Jesus Christ the victim blaming in this thread is insane. This is
| why deepfake laws are needed. Sure OP used Meta AI, and
| consented, but if I did that I'd probably be consenting to using
| the picture _for that one session_, where I'm in control.
| Definitely not for this, they shouldn't be able to put this in
| their ToS.
| bingaweek wrote:
| Companies need to be reminded that their operation is subject
| to our own ToS, the law, and it supercedes theirs. We can
| change it at any time and the sycophants defending any legal
| behavior aren't winning any favors. The behavior you see on HN
| playing defense for violations of privacy is disgusting, but
| I'm glad it's out in the open for everyone to see how far
| they'll go.
| mdanger007 wrote:
| Absolutely. The public doesn't care what word games you play or
| what rights you allocate yourself in a terms of service if you
| pull off something shady you deserve all the bad publicity you
| get
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| I don't think it's victim _blaming_ to say that the linked
| Reddit post is missing critical details (and indeed any
| details) about what precisely is going on. I agree that it 's
| quite bad if Meta did this without the user specifically asking
| them to do so.
| zombiwoof wrote:
| Welcome to Humans 3.0
| paxys wrote:
| Standard internet outrage bait. There are no ads in the photos.
| The person uploaded their photo to Meta AI's "imagine me" feature
| which generates photos of you in exotic situations, and now the
| company is...putting them in exotic situations. That's literally
| what it is for.
| dan_wood wrote:
| Yeah not seeing it either, both images say, only you can see
| this..
|
| Feels more like it generated more than the user asked for and
| now it's just showing those images in their feed.
| drivingmenuts wrote:
| What nobody mentions about "only you can see this" is that
| "you" refers to ordinary users of the service and there is no
| mention if employees are included in that grouping. It has
| happened before that systems secure from the public were
| misused by persons with privileges within the organization.
|
| The obvious response is "well, yeah. So? They need it." but
| that's not how ordinary people, who don't deal with this
| daily, think. When they see "only you can see this" I think
| they take it literally.
|
| The computer is always watching and sometimes so are the
| people running the computers.
| bandinobaddies wrote:
| It is still weird. Imagine you try out Photoshop online with
| your private photos. A few minutes later, you start seeing ads
| with those same photos edited in different ways. Even if those
| ads are visible only to you, it will still feel pretty creepy.
| graypegg wrote:
| It's technically opt-in. You have to use their image generator,
| which requires agreeing to this "images appear in your feed
| randomly" feature implicitly. [0] You think you're just
| generating 1 photo, but you're actually signing up to a service
| that generates photos and adds them to your instagram feed.
| Even their help docs don't mention that nuance though. [1] It's
| not technically an ad, even though it mostly functions like one
| since the purpose of these images isn't anything more than bait
| to get the user to use meta ai more... I guess.
|
| [0] https://www.businessinsider.com/meta-ai-face-images-
| instagra...
|
| [1] https://www.meta.com/help/artificial-
| intelligence/imagine/?s...
| paxys wrote:
| Either I'm crazy or everyone else here is.
|
| "I asked Meta AI for photos of myself and it started
| advertising Meta AI by showing me photos of myself."
|
| How does this "function like" an ad? Why are we even using
| the word ad? This is not how ads work. By this definition
| what _isn 't_ an ad?
| thih9 wrote:
| Also, their support pages say that this can be turned off:
|
| > You can turn this feature off and delete your setup photos in
| Meta AI settings at any time.
|
| https://m.facebook.com/help/messenger-app/1108543930466238
| potsandpans wrote:
| Standard hackernews top comment dismissal.
| miltonlost wrote:
| Big tech can't do wrong! Your personal feelings don't matter!
| /s
|
| Every tech bro thinks they're a Nietzchean Superman who
| deserves to do whatever they choose because they can.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| To be fair to them, no one's proven them wrong yet.
| Bengalilol wrote:
| The idea is kind of interesting, but who from Meta thought this
| would be _cool_ to do such thing ?
| pesus wrote:
| I wonder that in regards to just about everything they do.
| MarkSweep wrote:
| Some growth team probably has goal to move a metric. This
| promotion is one of their experiments. If they move the metric,
| they can cite that in their performance review. If the
| promotion causes bad PR (see this thread) and none of the pre-
| launch reviews flagged it, they can then share what they
| learned with others in the company. They will say something
| like "lead a cross functional team to develop best practices
| for use of AI-generated pictures of a user in promotions" in
| their pronounce review.
|
| Either way, we get experimented on like lab rates and they get
| their bonus.
| radley wrote:
| In an old-school _yay internet_ sense, it 's fun like amusement
| park rides taking your photo. But in a modern sense, it's just
| creepy.
| npteljes wrote:
| This is just hysteria. These are not third party ads, rather just
| Meta upselling its own thing; it is generated natively by the
| platform, not leading anywhere else but the platform that the
| user is already on. Even though it came up in an unexpected way,
| it explicitly says that it's private experience.
|
| The real boring dystopia (referring to the subreddit's name) is
| how the human psyche is played with by these platforms in the
| first place. People, including me, sign away so much for
| convenience, fear of missing out, for wanting to belong, to be
| appreciated. These systems sell the poison and the topical cure
| at the same time, and it's not just perfectly legal, it's wanted
| even, desired.
|
| EDIT: edited "ads" to "third party ads" - to spell out what the
| common understanding is of an advertisement.
| miltonlost wrote:
| > These are not ads, rather something that is generated
| natively by the platform, not leading anywhere else but the
| platform that the user is already on.
|
| Is this post Advertising a product? Yes, it is advertising a
| MetaAI product. Just because it's not an external ad, doesn't
| mean it's not an ad. Hulu shows me adds for other Hulu shows.
| This is an ad despite me not leaving that streaming site.
|
| What is an advertisement to you?
| lbhdc wrote:
| You are right, that is still and ad. Platform ads are really
| common for anyone running their own ad exchange. Sometimes
| its just to use up supply, other times its to meet in house
| goals.
| npteljes wrote:
| This is technically true, these are advertisements. But not
| what first come to mind when reading the title "Instagram is
| using my face on ads targeted at me", which would be third-
| party ads, so this is my point. The title is sensational, a
| play on this misunderstanding, rather than being substantial.
| sweeter wrote:
| No one said third-party ads, the description is perfectly
| accurate to what is happening. The knee jerk reaction to
| call it sensationalist is odd to me.
| bitmasher9 wrote:
| My ick levels are about the same whether it's used by third
| parties or just Meta. It's a mega corporation using my
| likeness to manipulate my behavior for their own ends.
| miltonlost wrote:
| The title is only sensational because you, YOU, conflated
| "3rd party ads" with "ads". The only misunderstanding comes
| from you who didn't know what an advertisement is and added
| your own personal connotation. The title is not playing on
| anything; it's an accurate description of what happened.
| You are downplaying what happened, claiming "hysteria" when
| you are, from the get-go, wrong about the entire premise.
| Your ignorance of the definition of an ad doesn't mean the
| title is trying to ragebait you; how could the author know
| you don't know things?
|
| An ad is an ad is an ad is an ad.
|
| My god, admit when you're wrong fully rather than just
| saying "you're technically correct".
| npteljes wrote:
| To help with understanding my point, I edited the
| original comment, and noted the edit.
| Handprint4469 wrote:
| > These are not ads, rather something that is generated
| natively by the platform, not leading anywhere else but the
| platform that the user is already on
|
| So if Instagram shows you ads about Meta AI, it doesn't count
| as ads because both are owned by Meta?
| npteljes wrote:
| Yes, in my mind, just saying "ads" are more for like Nike or
| Hyundai, than for a service provider upselling its own
| products. But this point is technically valid, these are
| advertisements as well. Just not what I, or others, first
| think of when they read "Instagram is using my face on ads".
| lelandfe wrote:
| If you go into a Hyundai dealer and see a big banner about
| their new financing plan, isn't that an ad?
|
| If the Nike catalog includes a full page promo for
| nike.com, isn't that an ad?
| npteljes wrote:
| Yes, it's an ad.
|
| My point is, and I even edited the original comment so
| that it comes across better: "ads on instagram" implies
| third party ads much more, than fist party upsells.
| Another example is "Ads in Windows". The popup for
| OneDrive is much less egregious than Candy Crush, or
| tabloid news in the Start Menu. This is because, while
| the user asked for neither, some consent was already
| given for the first party, while no consent was given to
| the third party.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| They are an Instagram post that is shown to make you buy
| something, not because anyone you follow posted it. So, it's an
| ad. The fact that they're using your face in a Meta ad doesn't
| make it any different from any other ad.
|
| You're probably thinking about this as not a problem from a
| privacy perspective, and you may be right that this is not
| technically a privacy issue. But it's still a _huge_ problem
| from a psychological influence perspective. Ads are already
| extremely good at manipulating your psyche, adding the ability
| to show you personally in some wonderful situations that their
| product would apparently put you in is a whole other level in
| manipulation.
|
| Plus, if this gets normalized, the next step is _absolutely_
| going to be to sell this as a new type of ad to other brands
| (assuming people end up interacting with such ads more).
|
| Edit to say: thinking about it, I actually think it's a privacy
| violation even for a Meta ad. Giving them permission to use an
| image of my face to generate a better selfie doesn't give them
| permission to use it to serve me ads. The GDPR is pretty
| specific about this: when you opt into sharing personal data
| for a specific purpose, that has to be interpreted in a narrow
| sense, you can't arbitrarily broaden the scope.
| tantalor wrote:
| Imagine the ozempic ads that use your real face on a thinner
| body.
| n144q wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advertising
|
| > Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring
| attention to a product or service. Advertising aims to present
| a product or service in terms of utility, advantages and
| qualities of interest to consumers.
|
| Nobody ever said that advertising must involve a third party.
| npteljes wrote:
| I feel like advertisements are on a spectrum, and that (let's
| call them) "first party" advertisements are not what come to
| people's minds, when they read a title like "Instagram is
| using my face on ads targeted at me". I'd like to prove this
| point by the following image search: https://duckduckgo.com/?
| t=ftsa&q=instagram+ads&iax=images&ia... . The top results all
| relate to advertise something on Instagram that is not Meta-
| related - so, third party ads.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| If Instagram shows you an old post with a picture thats got a
| filter on, or grouped some of your pictures together into a
| frame, saying "look back on your memories and repost" is that
| an advert?
|
| When your post comes up in the explore page of another user, is
| that an advert?
|
| what about those stupid "Here is a post from your friends on
| threads" with most of the stuff cropped off, as soon as you try
| and click it, its loads the fucking app store?
|
| Meta have done some terrible shit, but this isn't up there. Its
| not even a mili-cambridge analyitica. (or a pico-myanmar) its
| just a shitty app in their shitty social network.
|
| It seems like we are just hipster-hate yak shaving on something
| pointless, and missing the much wider point that the US needs
| decent data protections laws, and a functioning legislature.
| npteljes wrote:
| I fully agree. The reddit post is a nothingburger. It feels
| like it's more about someone wanting to express themselves,
| or fish for something that might worth good feedback, than
| someone who actually has something worthwhile to say.
|
| The actual good that this thing has is some feedback for
| people, to think about whether they want to use these
| platforms, or not. Being conscious about stuff like these is
| what I think does good to the world, and the well-being of
| people.
| fullshark wrote:
| This is just rationalization, everything the post said is 100%
| correct and the users are unhappy about it justifiably.
| amiantos wrote:
| I'm with you. If I am at a bar and I see a sign that says "PBR
| - $3", I don't think of that as an advertisement. This user
| opted into Meta AI and (perhaps 'unknowingly' as no one reads
| the terms) gave their consent for this to happen, so I think
| 'hysteria' is appropriate and it's clear to me that here in the
| comments, opinions about this are based on feelings and not
| facts, and for that reason, it has to be described in
| misleading ways.
| oglop wrote:
| What better way to increase the hyperreality needed to sell
| products then to have you in the ad! But also this is HN, so
| someone needs tk lecture you on "what you mean" and also remind
| you it's their product you used and signed up for and signed your
| rights away too so it's YOUR fault, or some such pompous
| condescending trash. I say, lucky you! I say, embrace the future!
| I say, plaster my face on adult diaper ads and sell them to me. I
| say, slap my face on that TRT ad from my podcast that I listen to
| in my lonely apartment to feel a connection to the world while I
| write code that "matters". It's a beautiful world.
| ajkjk wrote:
| I'd like to see the "imagine what you'd look like if you
| exercised a lot more" or "had better posture" or "spent all
| summer in the sun" filters.
| floatrock wrote:
| Opening up a whole new dimension of adtech
| personalization/engagement here... more evil brainstorming:
|
| - electronic billboards on the bus corner start doing this while
| walking down the street
|
| - your favorite peacock sitcom starts injecting your friends or
| recent vacation locations or friends' recent vacation locations
| on the main character's digital picture frame. Your buddy
| recently went to Sandals Resort in Jamaica? Now that's going to
| be emphasized in the unused screen real estate in the background
| of the bar scene to play on your fomo.
|
| - hell, sporting games already have digital billboards on the
| field barriers that are customized for different markets /
| broadcasters... why not customize them further for the individual
| stream
| trescenzi wrote:
| There's a scene in Minority Report of a mall and it's basically
| this. The billboards scan you and then target you directly as
| you go by.
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7bXJ_obaiYQ
| radley wrote:
| I've always wondered about that scene: does everyone around
| him see him in the ads as well? If so, that would mean that
| they're appropriating his image to sell to others. Perhaps
| they're laser / audio projections, so each person only sees
| their own ad.
| grakker wrote:
| Any complaint that starts with "used meta..." just loses me. It's
| like, I stuck this needle into my left testicle and now that
| testicle hurts.
| anon373839 wrote:
| There is an interesting phenomenon going on here. On one hand,
| this is pretty mundane: a software tool you're currently using
| shows you examples of ways to use the software. On the other
| hand, this does technically constitute an "ad".
|
| What's interesting to me is that some people seem to have a
| strong emotional reaction to the fact that it's possible to
| describe this as "Instagram using my face in an ad," even if the
| underlying event lacks the characteristics that would make that
| statement outrageous.
| radley wrote:
| I think the common wisdom is that if you use a Meta product, they
| will try every possible form of social engineering to drive
| engagement.
|
| While this example was unexpected, it was predicted ( _Minority
| Report_ et al.) and is very much in line with their MO.
| frereubu wrote:
| I'd say this is common wisdom on sites like HN, very much _not_
| outside the tech bubble. I can immediately bring to mind a good
| number of non-tech family members who would be completely
| freaked out by this.
| zjp wrote:
| That's the end of my account, then.
| maartenscholl wrote:
| Meta AI asks permission to do this, but note that in some U.S.
| states personal publicity rights end upon death. Isn't it
| hilariously Wallacian that this technology can be used to make
| targeted ads featuring the viewers deceased loved ones?
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