Wellness That Matters: Black Health News & Community Care
- Most social platforms assume your use equals consent, using posts, photos, and interactions to train generative AI models.
- Meta (including Facebook, Instagram, Threads) broadly trains nearly all data; U.S. users generally cannot opt out.
- LinkedIn offers an opt-out toggle under Settings > Privacy > Data for Generative AI Improvement; switch it off.
- Reddit lacks an opt-out; deals with AI companies and persistent public scraping mean deleting your account is the only reliable defense.
- YouTube ties to Google, which trains on uploaded videos; creators cannot stop Google model training but can opt out of third-party training.
Recently, the Amazon-owned Twitch made headlines for announcing that it would allow users to opt out of having their streams, VODs, and chats fed into an AI training machine. This, understandably, made a lot of people upset. But, it turns out, Twitch might be one of the more moderate social media sites on this front. Most social media apps are training some kind of AI on your data, and few make it as easy as a single toggle to opt out at all.
Almost every social media site out there makes it extremely hard to know exactly how your data is used these days. Training generative AI models like Google’s Gemini are often lumped in with more mundane (but still machine learning-powered) features like, say, YouTube’s algorithm. Sifting through privacy policies to even find out whether a social app contributes to the kind of generative AI that’s proven so controversial is an undertaking that would deter most lawyers.
Even if you find out how your data’s being used, many sites simply don’t offer you the ability to opt out. And of all the ones I looked at, not a single one that trains AI offers an opt-in model. Put simply, if you logged on today, tech companies took that as your consent to be part of their training data. If there is a way to opt out of even some AI training from a social media site, though, you’ll find instructions in our list below, sorted by alphabetical order.
Bluesky
What training do they do? Officially, Bluesky doesn’t train any AI models—although it does employ AI in its development and builds AI features. However, since Bluesky uses the decentralized AT Protocol, your posts (and a lot of other data, like who you block) are public. So it’s possible for just about anyone to scrape your posts and use them to train AI.
What can you do to stop it? You don’t need to do anything; Bluesky itself doesn’t use your posts to train AI. However, if you’re worried about a third party scraping your data, you might want to hold off on posting to it.
What training do they do? It might be easier to ask what data Facebook doesn’t use for training AI. After spending a small country’s GDP worth of money on a metaverse that never materialized, Facebook’s parent company Meta is pivoting to AI and rushing to catch up to companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google in the process. The company’s policy on training AI with your data is extremely broad, not only encompassing your posts, photos, and interactions on Facebook, but also data collected from third-party brokers, and “information that is available on the internet.” That’s a phrase so all-encompassing that it’s hard to imagine any data Facebook is technically capable of scooping up that it would refrain from collecting. Facebook says it stops just short of training AI on private messages with friends or family, “unless you or someone in the chat chooses to share those messages with our AIs.”
What can you do to stop it? Unfortunately, unless you’re in the EU, Facebook makes it impossible to opt out of training AI with your data. The company carves out a narrow exception (where it is obligated to by law) for the specific scenario where you find personally identifying information about you included in a response from one of its AI tools. If that happens, you can submit a complaint, which Facebook will then review to decide if it will do anything about it.
However, keep in mind that Meta considers interacting with Facebook’s AI tools in the first place as consent to train future AI models on your interactions with it. So, even trying to figure out whether your personal information has been scooped up at all could expose you further. In general, it seems the only winning move with Facebook is not to play. Though it’s worth noting that even deleting your Facebook account won’t necessarily stop Facebook from training AI with your data—it will just prevent them from getting any data from your Facebook account directly.
What training do they do? Instagram is owned by Facebook’s parent company Meta, so many of its policies are the same as what we covered for Facebook in the section above. That said, Instagram has some specific issues of its own, such as the Muse feature, which briefly let users create AI-generated images of other users without their consent, before immediately removing that feature after realizing it was a terrible, horrible idea.
What can you do to stop it? Similar to Facebook, you can file an objection if you find your private info included in AI responses, and if you’re in the EU, you can opt out of training entirely. Alternatively, your only real option is to either delete your Instagram account or at least make it private.
What training do they do? LinkedIn is owned by Microsoft, and Microsoft famously is all-in on AI (for “entertainment purposes only“), so you should be wary about the site using your data to train AI. According to LinkedIn’s official policy, users’ posts, comments, profile data, resumes, and group activity, among other types of data, can all be used to train AI models. Unofficially, it should be noted that last year LinkedIn was sued over allegations that it was training AI on private DMs±an allegation LinkedIn denies.
What can you do to stop it? While LinkedIn uses the same “better to ask forgiveness than permission” model most companies employ, the site at least allows you to revoke your permission. On the site, head to Settings and Privacy > Data Privacy > How LinkedIn uses your data > Data for Generative AI Improvement. Here, you’ll find a toggle that’s on by default labeled “Use my data for training content creation AI models.” Switch this off. Note: This only applies to data collected on LinkedIn, not the broader Microsoft ecosystem.
What training do they do? Reddit is complicated: The company doesn’t train its own AI models, but it does have deals with both OpenAI and Google to train their models on its data. Reportedly, Reddit has at least considered ending those deals (at least in part because, like everyone else, the company has seen a drop in traffic as AI eats search’s lunch). But AI models were also training on Reddit data long before these deals were official, so it’s hard to say whether ending an official partnership would prevent AI companies from scooping up as much publicly-available data as possible.
What can you do to stop it? Short of deleting your Reddit account and never posting on the site, there’s nothing you can do. Reddit doesn’t have any tool to opt out of AI training at the moment. And even if it did, AI companies have been scraping publicly available posts for a while anyway.
Snapchat
What training do they do? Like most social media apps, Snapchat uses your public images, video, and audio to train its generative AI models. The company says it uses these to develop features like AI Snaps and AI Lenses. Snapchat also briefly had a deal to integrate Perplexity’s AI tools to its search, although that deal was “amicably ended” last year before a broad rollout, so it’s unclear if any user data was ever shared or trained with Perplexity.
What can you do to stop it? Unlike most social media apps, Snapchat’s opt out is relatively straightforward (if a little buried). Inside the app, open Settings and under Privacy Controls tap Generative AI Settings. Here, disable the toggle that says “Allow Use of Public Content.” That’s it. As usual, it’s not impossible for third-parties to scrape publicly available data, though Snapchat’s design makes it a little more difficult. If you want to be extra-safe, avoid leaving any persistent, public content up on your profile.
Threads
What training do they do? Once again, Threads is owned by Facebook parent company Meta, so it shares the same data training policies as Facebook. Which is to say, unless absolutely required by law, publicly available data on Threads will be used to train AI regardless of your consent and you can’t opt out of it.
What do you think so far?
What can you do to stop it? If you’re in the EU, you can submit an objection claim using the same process for your Facebook account. For U.S. users, you’ll need to submit a complaint that demonstrates your personal information has shown up in AI responses in order to have some of your data removed. Beyond that, your only option is to either make your Threads account private, or delete it entirely.
TikTok
What training do they do? TikTok’s AI training policies are an even bigger nightmare to navigate than Facebook, owing to the fact that the company had to spin off U.S. operations earlier this year into a separate entity. In general, TikTok’s parent company ByteDance trains AI models on user data, though if you’re in the U.S., that data might be used for different purposes like training recommendation systems, but isn’t allowed to be used for ByteDance’s more general AI model training.
What can you do to stop it? Like Facebook, if you want to opt out of training AI with your data, you need to submit a specific objection about a privacy breach in violation of your local laws. In other words, you can’t simply say “please don’t train on my data.” You can head to this page to be redirected to the appropriate form for your location.
This would normally be the part where we would say that making your account private is a good fallback defense, but there have been some reports that TikTok even trains on private videos and unsaved drafts. The most foolproof way to guarantee TikTok doesn’t train AI on your data, then, is to delete your account.
Twitch
What training do they do? Twitch’s policies allow it to use your streams, VODs, clips, stream chats, and even the images and text on your channel to train generative AI models. It’s unclear exactly what kind of features Twitch would use this data to develop. The company makes mention of features like captions in its FAQ page, though obviously automatic caption features long pre-date generative AI models as we know them today.
What can you do to stop it? If you run a Twitch channel, you can head to your Twitch security settings, scroll down to Training for Generative AI and switch the toggle off. Yes, this is on by default, and yes, Twitch knows this is unpopular. It’s important to note that this setting will only cover your channel. If you appear on another person’s stream or type in their chat, then their opt-out preferences will govern any data you generate.
X
What training do they do? X not only uses your public posts and data to train its Grok AI, but since the company merged with xAI and SpaceX, your data can be used to train AI models across the entire company. I can only gauge based on what the site’s public policies are, though it’s worth noting that SpaceXAI CEO Elon Musk is known for his disregard for legal or even safety procedures. So, factor that into your risk assessment while deciding what to do with your data.
What can you do to stop it? Fortunately, X does have a method to opt out of training AI on your data. Head to Settings > Privacy & Safety and scroll down to Data sharing and personalization. Here, select Grok & Third-party Collaborators. On this page, there will be several boxes to uncheck, most notably, the verbose “Allow your public data as well as your interactions, inputs, and results with Grok and xAI to be used for training and fine-tuning.”
YouTube
What training do they do? YouTube is a particular privacy nightmare when it comes to AI training because your YouTube account is tied to a broader Google account, and Google is one of the biggest players in the AI space. It would take a much larger, longer guide to go through all of the ways Google trains AI on your data (even outside your Google account), and how to stop it. But even on the narrow slice of YouTube, Google has been found to train video-generation models on the videos uploaded to it, without YouTubers’ knowledge or consent.
What can you do to stop it? If you’re a regular YouTube user, you’ll want to look into opting out of training Google AI on your data (as much as you’re able) at the Google account level. However, if you upload videos to YouTube, you’re in a different situation. Currently, Google doesn’t offer any option to prevent training its own AI models on your videos at all.
Ironically, however, Google does offer the ability to opt out of training third-party models on your data. To do this, open up the YouTube Creator Studio, and head to Settings > Channel > Advanced Settings then scroll down to Third-party training. Here, you can uncheck “Allow third-party companies to train AI models using my channel content.”
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