Fury Increases In Latin America Against Meta After It Fails To Notify Artists About Using Their Data To Train AI

Meta making use of personal data belonging to the artist community for AI training has long been a subject of debate. Many have resorted to complaints, lawsuits, and going as far as to boycott its apps as the tech giant failed to get consent or reward compensation.

Now, fury is increasing in the Latin American region as many continue to complain about Meta’s AI models scrapping their online work for the sake of training.

Meta tried to respond by rolling out a new form for those in the UK, US, and EU where it would request users to opt-out before their data was used. Unfortunately, the same was not the case with those in Latin America who are now complaining about Meta’s hidden tactics of failing to do the same, stripping them of hard work and great efforts without any compensation.

One illustrator in the EU has explained how Meta marketed her hand-painted crafts featuring everyday life without consent as she was not an artist and therefore Meta didn’t feel the need to ask her before using her material.

Now, people in Latin America are furious as AI regulation is close to being non-existent. There are no rules for privacy and even if there are, it’s more or less like they never existed. Hence, no users in this part of the world get a say on whether or not their content could be used for the sake of training Meta’s AI models.

Speaking to nine artists arising from this region, one local media outlet had their views recorded including how they were blindsided by Meta’s unfair actions. But the tech giant is refuting the claims and mentioning that it sent them plenty of alerts in the app, including emails to explain what was going on.

Meta is now being slammed for discrimination and failure to adopt the same regulations globally that are seen in places like the US and EU. Meta’s spokesperson is not backing down, adding how the firm believes in creating and using AI that’s safe and responsible.

It continued to explain how using public data for AI model training was nothing new and a widely accepted and used practice in today’s modern day and age, definitely not something that they felt was unique.

In 2023 September, Facebook’s parent firm rolled out a host of new AI features where the content was mined across various apps. This is where posts shared publicly via different apps were part of the information used for training models that it unveiled at Connect.

Common examples included the AI-based search tools combined into the Instagram platform as well as picture generators located across different nations like Ghana, India, the US, South Africa, Australia, and Canada.

This is not the first time that we’ve heard about complaints rolling out from the Spanish community. Many artists have also reiterated the same thoughts on how Meta indulges in data collection practices that are illegal and unfair so it can attain its own benefits at the expense of others.

This is why more companies are now seeking to add copyright protection policies to ensure fair trading, along with gender equality and moves to reduce carbon footprint.

The perfect example has to be Brazil which is giving greater protection to citizens than that observed in any other Latin American nation. Its laws related to data protection are the most similar to that seen in the EU.

Therefore, Meta is bound by the law to provide users with the chance to opt out of using their data for training AI models.

Image: DIW-Aigen

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by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World