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Facebook uses Australian adults public photos/posts to train AI, without opt-out
- nwbort 2y agoPresumably, the opt-out is not to make photos/posts public
- agilob 2y agoOr post AI generated images.
- chrischen 2y agoDoesn't work if someone else violates your privacy in the first place by posting it publicly. To take it to the extreme, someone could break into your house (where you presumably do have a reasonable expectation of privacy), take photos of you and upload them publicly.
- nwbort 2y agoWell yes, but if you're assuming that, then that other person who violates your privacy could also choose to allow the photos to be used for AI training even if there is an opt-in or -out.
- daghamm 2y agoSo what happens if I am at a party with a trigger happy social-butterfly assuie? Should I wear a mask at all time?
- fph 2y agoPretty simple. If you don't make it illegal, they will do it.
- moi2388 2y agoAnd even if you do make it illegal they will still do it, since fines are a mere fraction of the revenue generated from said illicit activities
- scarab92 2y agoOne thing that annoys me about western society is this default assumption that everything should be illegal. How about we wait until someone can demonstrate real harm in the real world. Then we can discuss what mitigations are available, what trade offs we want to make, then as an absolute last resort we can make things illegal. This also applies to censorship. Looking at you Britain.
- defrost 2y agoFixing the stable door after the horse has bolted? Yep. Great plan.
- scarab92 2y agoIt’s a public company. If it ever actually turns out to be a problem, we’ll just make a law that requires them to delete the data / model.
- Lio 2y agoIt’s a foreign public company. If Australia make a law requiring them to delete the data Facebook will just use an offshore copy, since they’ve already exported it. Facebook/Meta is not a company with a moral compass. If it can get away with something, regardless of the harm it causes, it will.
- scarab92 2y agoHow is that any different to banning it upfront and Facebook continuing to do it anyway? Australia’s leverage against a US company is the same whether they try to enact a ban now or later.
- defrost 2y agoSpeaking of Australian adults, public photos, and one (of many) of HN's favourite writers: I am the science fiction writer Greg Egan. There are no photos of me on the web. ~ https://www.gregegan.net/images/GregEgan.htm https://www.gregegan.net/images/GregEgan.htm ~ https://old.reddit.com/r/printSF/comments/5nr5d7/has_anyone_ever_met_greg_egan/ https://old.reddit.com/r/printSF/comments/5nr5d7/has_anyone_...
- dangsux 2y ago[dead]
- roylez 2y agoYandex image has his photo listed literally in the first position. Cool website and idea though.
- defrost 2y agoDoes it? Is that an actual photo of Greg? Did you read his claim that many photos exist that purport to be him but not one is an actual photo of the West Australian Sci Fi writer that he sees in the mirror daily?
- seszett 2y agoThe first image I get on Yandex is "Professor G.K. Egan" on the "staff-fake.html" page of a University website[0]. Aside from the "fake" part of the URL, it's not "the" Greg Egan we're talking about. The second image is his profile picture on X/Twitter[1], which one can assume is fake since he says himself that his only puts fake photos (and that picture seems to be nowhere else on the Internet). The third image is a speaker on the French-speaking Belgian radio that has one episode of his show about Greg Egan[2]. The fourth image is Knuth Berger, a journalist that has a discussion with Tim Egan about a book[3]. [0]https://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/staff-fake.html https://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/staff-fake.html [1]https://xcancel.com/gregegan https://xcancel.com/gregegan [2]https://auvio.rtbf.be/media/entrez-sans-frapper-de-la-hard-sf-avec-diaspora-de-greg-egan-2510505 https://auvio.rtbf.be/media/entrez-sans-frapper-de-la-hard-s... [3]https://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/books/journalist-knute-berger-discusses-pugetopolis-with-author-tim-egan-at-town-hall/ https://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/books/journalist-...
- swarnie 2y agoIsn't that just what social media is? When you sign up and begin uploading text or files they become the exclusive property and rights to exploit for commercial purposes of the platform. > This means, for example, that if you share a photo on Facebook, you give us permission to store, copy and share it with others (again, consistent with your settings) such as Meta Products or service providers that support those products and services. This licence will end when your content is deleted from our systems.
- niemandhier 2y agoFriends of mine use scripts to modify every foto of them to slightly move face recognition markers. The images exist, the person on them looks very similar to them so aunts and uncles don’t mind, but the human you see is a fiction.
- graemep 2y agoCan you tell me where to get such scripts?
- ipsum2 2y agoThe article does not make clear whether the photos are used to train recommendation systems (eg newsfeed, ads) or generative image models. The article makes it appear like the latter, but is most likely the former.
- afro88 2y agoWhy would it be most likely the former?
- kleiba 2y agoFirst, I suppose "scrape" is not the correct word here, if fb is just using the photos people uploaded to their servers. Second, what was the license agreement between users and fb at the point they uploaded their pictures? I wouldn't be surprised that this is completely legal and covered by fb's TOS...?
- omeid2 2y agoYou can't agree to something that wasn't even conceived at the time. Maybe it is "legal" by the letter of the law but it is hard to argue that it is inline with the spirit of the law.
- bhawks 2y agoAccording to the article there is no law in Australia regarding this - but EU and US (probably specifically California) laws cause them to offer the option to citizens of those countries.
- dotancohen 2y agoClearly these users opted in when they signed up for Facebook and then uploaded their photos. They had an option not to use Facebook. I'm dead serious. I do not have a Facebook account for this and other reasons. If you don't want a company using your photos / contacts / other personal details, then simply don't give them this information in the first place.
- left-struck 2y agoEven if the users opted in when they signed up by agreeing to some privacy policy they didn’t read, that no one ever reads, that doesn’t make it okay for facebook to do this.
- dotancohen 2y agoIf someone does not read the terms to a service and then uploaded your private information to that service, and then the service does exactly what they said that they would do with that information, how is that the fault of the service? My parents raised me to be responsible for my actions and understand their consequences, maybe this is an unusual position?
- iamnotsure 2y agoOculus quest it is.
- wodenokoto 2y agoThere was a similar discussion when facebook started running facial recognition on all pictures. But is is interesting if the image generators from facebook will be able to generate pictures of non-celebrities just from their name. Although it would be fun to see what the average Joe _actually_ looks like.
- thih9 2y agoThe article talks about using images for training. Your scenario would require using both images and names. Is there a reason to believe this is happening?
- wodenokoto 2y ago> Is there a reason to believe this is happening? I don't know what counts as a "reason to believe", but they have the data, users have accepted a TOS that gives Facebook right to use all data, and all things equal, the more you know about a picture, the better training you can do with it. So for me its more a question of "is there a reason to believe that they are not supplementing photos with other user data"?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- zigararu 2y ago[dead]