data protection agencies in 11 European countries – and those agencies, led by Ireland, telling the Facebook giant to scrap the slurp.
They are making such a pathetic show about their own decision to observe the law.
And this is a law that is clearly and openly readable. You don't need legal experts to understand the basics, and you don't need any agencies telling you that you must observe it.
They are constantly giving the impression as if they were a gang of professional outlaws and only if somebody catches them redhanded, then they are able make a decision - one decision for one case, exceptipnally - to behave properly.
They are the worst of the worst, and I will never use an instance that voluntarily federates with Threads. I respect MS more than Meta, and that's a pretty incredible feat on the part of Meta.
Once electronics get cheap enough, FB will probably ship free devices with some fbOS spyware. Like how they’ll zero rate data if they’re allowed to in a given region.
Such “pay for play” arrangements favor big content providers who can afford to pay for access to users' eyeballs, and marginalize those who can't, such as nonprofits, startups, and fellow users.
Its crazy how much further ahead Europe is in Privacy Protection.
All these companies need to be held responsible for what they do with our data, and what it costs them when they lose control of it. Either figure out how to safe guard it or suffer painful consequences. Or perhaps only store what's necessary for us to interact.
But then again, we also have pretty much every EU group pushing for super invasive chat control. It's ridiculous how schizophrenic they are on the subject of digital privacy.
Yup, the EU isn't a role model for the world or anything. They have some good laws, and those should be replicated elsewhere, but don't assume that just because they got a few things right, that they don't mess up in other really important ways.
It's not the same groups and entities pushing these things. It looks contradictory because it all ends up submitted to the same legislative bodies but that's par for the course in a functional democracy.
Yeah, seems weird, but there's also points where it's not related at all.
One is a company using user data they didn't tell they would use for this purpose, and illegally trying to do it anyway. They literally sell the data by making a product of it. It's also a private company with stakeholders.
Other is EU scanning messages, but not selling them.
Don't worry, maybe Meta can eventually just buy the inevitable leaks resulting from the general chat surveilance the EU so vehemently tries to push through.
And while this climb down has been cheered by privacy advocates, Meta called it "a step backwards for European innovation" that will cause "further delays bringing the benefits of AI to people in Europe."
"We're disappointed by the request from the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC), our lead regulator, on behalf of the European DPAs, to delay training our large language models (LLMs) using public content shared by adults on Facebook and Instagram — particularly since we incorporated regulatory feedback and the European DPAs have been informed since March," the social network said in a statement on Friday.
Without a steady diet of EU information, Meta's AI systems won't be able to "accurately understand important regional languages, cultures or trending topics on social media," the American goliath said at the time.
"In order to get the most out of generative AI and the opportunities it brings, it is crucial that the public can trust that their privacy rights will be respected from the outset," Almond continued.
"We will continue to monitor major developers of generative AI, including Meta, to review the safeguards they have put in place and ensure the information rights of UK users are protected."
Privacy group noyb had filed complaints with various European DPAs about Meta's LLM training plans, and its chair Max Schrems on Friday said while the organization welcomed the news, it "will monitor this closely."
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