Public posts and AI training: the consent debate in June 2024

A June 3, 2024 marketing newsletter raised a question about consent: should Facebook and Instagram users have to find an opt-out process before their public posts are used for AI training, or should a company first have to obtain permission? Mari Smith described the available objection route as difficult and questioned how effective it would be. This is an account of that dated discussion, not a statement of today's settings or legal rights.

Public content and the consent question

The message opened with a broad claim about material published to Facebook and Instagram, then qualified it as supposedly applying to content shared publicly. It connected that concern with a wider debate about platforms gathering material to train AI systems. Its central preference was for opt-in consent, rather than requiring people to search for an opt-out.

For people in the European Union, the author referred to emails from Meta that might contain a link to object. She expressed doubt about the length of the process and whether objections would be acted on. The newsletter did not give a complete sequence of steps or say that every reader in every country had the same route.

Readers were directed to an explanatory video, a community discussion asking whether they would opt out, reporting about the difficulty of opting out, and Meta's explanation of how it uses information for generative AI. The message also invited people to discuss their own experience of Meta AI, including useful practical applications and frustrations. Those were invitations to explore the issue, not evidence that a particular objection had succeeded.

Other items in the June 2024 newsletter

A separate historical event notice promoted a June 26, 2024 live discussion with Dreamdata on Facebook marketing for small businesses and brands. The advertised topics were using AI in marketing, improving ad campaigns and audience targeting, choosing content that connects with an audience, and live questions and answers. The supplied email gave an agenda, not the full instruction from that session.

The newsletter also introduced an interview with Human Design teacher Laveena Archers about social media marketing for practitioners of that system, and a free July 9 open-house webinar on the same business theme. The invitation said people outside Human Design and BG5 could also attend. Smith described Human Design as a personal passion since December 2020 and as a framework she was bringing into her marketing work; these were her own views and experiences.

A ten-week programme starting July 24, 2024 was then promoted for Human Design practitioners and BG5 business consultants who wanted to develop their businesses through social media marketing. The first class was offered free. The closing promotion mentioned a previous workshop covering AI-assisted Reels, Groups and ads, along with an optional personalised marketing-audit video. These were offers made in 2024, not present-day invitations or a supplied set of complete lessons.

The privacy discussion concerns public-post AI training in June 2024. It should not be confused with later debates about forwarding Messenger conversations to AI or using a person's own AI chats for advertising. The illustrative privacy photograph is not a screenshot of any opt-out process.