Snapchat Reserves the Right To Use AI-Generated Images of Your Face In Ads 29
Snapchat's terms of service for its "My Selfie" tool reserve the right to use users' AI-generated images in ads. While users can opt out by disabling the "See My Selfie in Ads" feature, it is enabled by default. 404 Media's Emanuel Maiberg reports: A support page on the Snapchat website titled "What is My Selfie?" explains further: "You'll take selfies with your Snap camera or select images from your camera roll. These images will be used to understand what you look like to enable you, Snap and your friends to generate novel images of you. If you're uploading images from the camera roll, only add images of yourself," Snapchat's site says. "After you've successfully onboarded, you may have access to some features powered by My Selfie, like Cameos stickers and AI Snaps. We are constantly adding features and functionality so stay tuned for more My Selfie features."
After seeing the popup, I searched for instances of people getting ads featuring their own face on Snapchat, and found this thread on the r/Privacy Reddit community where a user claimed exactly this happened to them. In an email to 404 Media, Snapchat said that it couldn't confirm or deny whether this user was served an ad featuring their face, but if they did, the ad was not using My Selfie images. Snapchat also said that it investigated the claim in the Reddit thread and that the advertiser, yourdreamdegree.com, has a history of advertising on Snapchat and that Snapchat believes the ad in question does not violate any of its policies. "The photo that was used in the advertisement is clearly AI, however, it is very clearly me," the Reddit user said. "It has my face, my hair, the clothing I wear, and even has my lamp & part of a painting on my wall in the background. I have no idea how they got photos of me to be able to generate this ad." Snapchat confirmed the news but emphasized that advertisers do not have access to Snapchat users' generative AI data. "You are correct that our terms do reserve the right, in the future, to offer advertising based on My Selfies in which a Snapchatter can see themselves in a generated image delivered to them," a Snapchat spokesperson said. "As explained in the onboarding modal, Snapchatters have full control over this, and can turn this on and off in My Selfie Settings at any time."
After seeing the popup, I searched for instances of people getting ads featuring their own face on Snapchat, and found this thread on the r/Privacy Reddit community where a user claimed exactly this happened to them. In an email to 404 Media, Snapchat said that it couldn't confirm or deny whether this user was served an ad featuring their face, but if they did, the ad was not using My Selfie images. Snapchat also said that it investigated the claim in the Reddit thread and that the advertiser, yourdreamdegree.com, has a history of advertising on Snapchat and that Snapchat believes the ad in question does not violate any of its policies. "The photo that was used in the advertisement is clearly AI, however, it is very clearly me," the Reddit user said. "It has my face, my hair, the clothing I wear, and even has my lamp & part of a painting on my wall in the background. I have no idea how they got photos of me to be able to generate this ad." Snapchat confirmed the news but emphasized that advertisers do not have access to Snapchat users' generative AI data. "You are correct that our terms do reserve the right, in the future, to offer advertising based on My Selfies in which a Snapchatter can see themselves in a generated image delivered to them," a Snapchat spokesperson said. "As explained in the onboarding modal, Snapchatters have full control over this, and can turn this on and off in My Selfie Settings at any time."
Is it finally time to make a law enforcing opt-in? (Score:3)
If you think just not playing the game by dumping your internet connection, think again - everyone has a camera and most public spaces as well.
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I think the scary thing is all the data mining companies out there who work with advertisers are trying right now to figure out how to use AI to tie it all together. With the amount of information they have, it's scary. Almost every grocery store either wants to track you by a rewards card or if you don't sign up they'll track you by a hash of your credit card number instead. That whole shopping history all gets handed over to these data brokers.
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Gosh.
Do you remember, about 10-15 years ago, when Europe asked the US to stop misusing EU personal data and get on board with GDPR and you all threw a hissy-fit and blocked us from accessing your websites because you simply couldn't BE compliant given the way those websites were run (and still, to this day, I hit the occasional "this website is not available in Europe" for exactly that reason)?
It's almost like we were telling the US something and they collectively gave us the finger and ignored us.
Maybe it'
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and you all threw a hissy-fit
it's actually ya'll 'round these parts, partner.
Re: Is it finally time to make a law enforcing opt (Score:2)
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You know that if that's all the law required you'd see very little change.
Instead of when you first install the app and create an account and you click "I accept" on a checkbox linking to 48 pages of terms and conditions, you'll get the same thing after every update and it will still be 48 pages and one line on page 36 was changed this time.
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Everything you do digitally is now used to track and sell your data and likeness. Maybe it's time to make a law that any data or likeness collection must be opted into. If you think just not playing the game by dumping your internet connection, think again - everyone has a camera and most public spaces as well.
Sorry. We can't hear you over the sound of piles of money being poured into congress to prevent any laws that may stop the data-suck.
Ad normalization is a horrorifying (Score:3)
People use "apps," instead of web browsers, to access these websites, so ad blocking will be harder.
People will see ads with their own photos in it.
Is my burning hatred and loathing simply explained by "he's old" or do some youngsters hate this shit too? Am I being irrational? I realize "rational" doesn't quite fit in the same context as "burning hatred" but I nevertheless am convinced I'm right .. just like any other insane person. Sigh.
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I don't feel irrational
I hate ads ! whenever an ad shows up, say, on TV, I will zap, applying additional pressure on the remote's button in case it would help the zapping be any faster
I will also find psychological relief in calling whoever shows up in the ad a 'fucking son of a bitch' (that is despite my total despair/incomprehension of my dad cheering his soccer team on TV although they can't hear him because it's just stupid)
But now, my own face in the ad
Re: Ad normalization is a horrorifying (Score:2)
Don't you just hate being thrown in with the flat earthers and the Wi-Fi allergic people? Now, me, I am a meat popsicle
Normalizing narcissism, is worse. (Score:2)
Don’t beat yourself up too badly. Much like Boomers struggling to grasp GenZ logic, the very best attention whores of yesteryear could have never imagined a world where mass narcissism is championed and rewarded like we do today.
Of course the kids won’t mind seeing themselves in ads.
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People use "apps," instead of web browsers, to access these websites, so ad blocking will be harder.
People will see ads with their own photos in it.
Is my burning hatred and loathing simply explained by "he's old" or do some youngsters hate this shit too? Am I being irrational? I realize "rational" doesn't quite fit in the same context as "burning hatred" but I nevertheless am convinced I'm right .. just like any other insane person. Sigh.
I'm not young, but I feel that hatred too. And not just on the terms of wasting my time. Think of the resources we pour into advertising. Including the steady stream of massive piles of junkmail that literally travels from the mailbox to the recycling bin unopened and un-looked at. Why? Advertising is the constant reminder that humans in the aggregate are loudmouthed, prideful, evil-doing shits that behave in whatever way they want so long as it makes them just a little bit more money, which we have somehow
One more thing I'm glad I never ever used (Score:2, Troll)
The US needs a stronger version of GDPR (Score:3)
Something like this probably doesn't fly with the EU's GDPR, and the US (really all countries) needs to take steps to protect the privacy rights of their respective citizens' personal information.
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Something like this probably doesn't fly with the EU's GDPR, and the US (really all countries) needs to take steps to protect the privacy rights of their respective citizens' personal information.
Whats funny (and not funny) about this, is the amount of people who assume Americans are going to have a problem with seeing themselves in ads.
American GDPR? You’d have to get Americans to value privacy again first. Bit of a tough sell with social media rewarding our best narcissists handsomely.
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It may because I'm on the West coast. We expect to get paid when we're in ads.
American GDPR? You’d have to get Americans to value privacy again first.
The culture here where business interest before all else is the long pole here. It's not hard to convince Americans that selling private license plate tracking data to cops is a huge overreach.
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Something like this probably doesn't fly with the EU's GDPR, and the US (really all countries) needs to take steps to protect the privacy rights of their respective citizens' personal information.
Why would the US do this? What's in it for the oligarchs? It'd slow down the data-suck that they all want so they can train their digital parrots. And we can't have that!
And this is why (Score:5, Interesting)
I've refused to have photos of me taken or posted online, be it me alone or in groups, including work photos, for the past 20 years.
I've been called a nutter and a crackpot for 20 years. And sadly, I hate to tell you I told you so...
In Soviet Russia... (Score:3)
Ads used to be in your face, now your face is in ads!
How dare your brain provide adblocking by ignoring ads. Henceforth ads will be disguised as your friends synthesized voice and face telling you to install malware.
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You've never had a friend who does MLM?
I never did. If they did, and weren't stupid enough to credibly believe in it, then I also wouldn't consider them a friend. But with this new tech, companies could identify the "tech support friend" and use their likeness to tell people that it's an emergency and they need to install [malware] immediately. Which is really bad because I'm the tech support friend.
55 gallons of lube advertisement (Score:4, Interesting)
Party like it's 1999!
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/t... [nbcnews.com]
The Internet is broken (Score:1)
"reserves the right"? I think you mean "requests p (Score:3, Informative)
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It's not.
It will be very different in the EU/UK if they try to work this angle under "implicit" consent.
Whatsapp / Facebook are currently finding this out.
Bunch of folks (Score:2)
Using "FREEEEE" services are shocked, SHOCKED, that there's a catch.
The IQ collapse continues apace.
Surely snapchat doesn't store millions of videos (Score:2)