{"id":53240,"date":"2025-10-03T11:30:16","date_gmt":"2025-10-03T11:30:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/53240\/"},"modified":"2025-10-03T11:30:16","modified_gmt":"2025-10-03T11:30:16","slug":"meta-wont-allow-users-to-opt-out-of-targeted-ads-based-on-ai-chats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/53240\/","title":{"rendered":"Meta won\u2019t allow users to opt out of targeted ads based on AI chats"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Thursday, Bits of Freedom\u2014a Netherlands-based advocacy group specially focused on privacy and freedom of communication\u2014announced<\/a> that a judge ruled Meta must respect users’ choice to avoid invasive personalized feeds. Within two weeks, Meta must update its apps to allow EU users the choice of sticking with a chronological feed that is not based on profiling.<\/p>\n

Bits of Freedom sued Meta under the DSA, reminding the court that “one of the core elements of the DSA is that users must have greater influence over the information they see.”<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the judge agreed, ruling<\/a> that Meta\u2014which Bits of Freedom said used “subtle design tricks” to steer users to feeds “where it can show as many interest and behavior based ads as possible”\u2014must promptly make changes to comply with the DSA.<\/p>\n

Meta declined to comment on the ruling, while Bits of Freedom warned that areas with weak privacy laws could be facing threats to democracy as tech companies strive for greater control over what content shows up in social media feeds.<\/p>\n

“For many people, and especially for young people, social media platforms are a major source of news and information,” Bits of Freedom said. “Therefore, it is crucial that users themselves can decide which content appears on their feed. Without that freedom of choice, participation in the public debate is seriously hampered.”<\/p>\n

Maartje Knaap, a spokesperson for Bits of Freedom, said it’s “regrettable that we need to go to court to ensure Meta complies with the law,” noting that users especially need to control their feeds ahead of elections.<\/p>\n

“It is absolutely unacceptable that a handful of American tech billionaires determine how we see the world,” Knaap said. “That concentration of power poses a risk to our democracy.”<\/p>\n

In the US, where data privacy laws are less strict, advocates are similarly concerned about social media feeds coming under the control of a handful of billionaires\u2014particularly after Donald Trump said he wants TikTok to be tweaked to be “100 percent MAGA”<\/a> under US ownership. Last year, Meta came under fire for boosting AI posts that researchers linked to misinformation, NPR reported<\/a>. And a future where AI distorts feeds and helps misinformation spread faster remains a concern, especially after Trump used his own social media platform, Truth Social, to post “a 35-second AI-generated video<\/a>\u00a0filled with crude insults, racial overtones, and bizarre conspiracy theories,” Ars\u00a0noted<\/a> earlier this week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Thursday, Bits of Freedom\u2014a Netherlands-based advocacy group specially focused on privacy and freedom of communication\u2014announced that a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53241,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[345,343,344,85,46,125],"class_list":["post-53240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53240\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}