Snapchat is reserving the right to put its users’ faces in ads, according to terms of service related to its “My Selfie” tool (formerly “AI Selfies”), which allows users and their friends to create AI-generated images trained on their selfies.
Users have the option to opt out of this by toggling off a “feature” in the app called “See My Selfie in Ads,” but according to 404 Media’s testing this feature is on by default.
PSA: Can be switched off
https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/17/24247238/snapchat-ai-my-selfie-feature-face-personalized-ads
Oh no! Another thing I don’t use turning out to be shitty.
Bye Snapchat.
If you don’t use that feature, it’s a non issue. Right?
It’s the principle of the thing. These companies keep overreaching all the time.
Yeah. I suppose. It would have been better from a security/privacy standpoint for it to be an opt-in vs an opt-out.
If they would have had two working brain cells they would have made it opt in and made a contest told them that one lucky person will win $10,000.
deleted by creator
That’s the thing though. They know nobody would ever do this voluntarily.
Or to not do it to begin with.
Name checks out…
Snapchat hereby has the right to suck my ass.
*Snapchat reserves the right to use your ass in AI ads
Ur gonna regret that harder than the poor souls making up the HumanCentiPad
Snapchat the next Day:
That’s why I deleted my account. May Snapchat rest in piss.
I cannot, I have had it for over a decade at this rate I think and my number associated is old now and I can’t log into to the website to delete. I can log into the app and use it but cannot delete it.
LoL good luck with my fucked up face!
they know that the type of people who use snapchat of all fucking things either don’t give a shit, or are too ignorant to see it as an issue. if they ever read about this at all. at the end of the day, they know that not enough people will ditch the platform to make any difference
For anyone that has friends that can be convinced to move off snapchat:
- it doesn’t actually delete things after the timer goes out, it just hides it from view. Sometimes the app bugs out and that data will be accessible again
- signal has stories and the same format of disappearing messages
- everything else that’s good about signal
If what they want is the “One weird trick your doctor is hiding from you” style content on the discover page, then I got nothing.
I’d say the same for Tiktok users. But that’s the popular platform, so it’s unpopular to criticize it.
I really did think that a Chinese social media company would never stand a chance here. I run into 80 year old farmers who ask me, “Did you see ‘at feller on TikTok who does ‘at thang with the tractor?”
That same person will go on and on about China. People are neat.
No. Just no. Not even going to highlight anything from this article.
I can’t think of a way for this to be legal in the EU by any capacity. I really don’t. They’re essentially claiming they own your likeness just by using their app and I really doubt it’s that simple. It’s kind of like asking for your first born in a readme.txt of a github script. Just because you write something ridiculous doesn’t mean it’s legal.
No, but they’ll try because the citizens aren’t rebelling against it yet.
Wait… Snapchat still exists?
Snapneck
Doesn’t seem to exist at all in EU. Disgusting either way.
Archive link
Raw:
Snapchat is reserving the right to put its users’ faces in ads, according to terms of service related to its “My Selfie” tool (formerly “AI Selfies”), which allows users and their friends to create AI-generated images trained on their selfies. Users have the option to opt out of this by toggling off a “feature” in the app called “See My Selfie in Ads,” but according to 404 Media’s testing this feature is on by default.
“My Selfie is used to power Generative AI, Cameos and other experiences on Snapchat that feature you, including ads,” a pop up in the Snapchat app says. “My Selfie uses your images and information to do this.”
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.”
(The Reddit user did not respond to a request for comment. yourdreamdegree.com did not respond to a request for comment.)
“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.”
Snapchat emphasized that “Advertisers do not have access to Snapchatters’ Gen AI data in any capacity, including My Selfies. Nor do they have access to Snapchatters’ private data, including Memories, that would enable them to create an AI generated image of an individual Snapchatter.”
However, the company did not answer questions about how it could in the future serve ads featuring a user’s face without providing that data to advertisers. Instead, it replied that “Snap currently does not use My Selfies in advertising,” and that “the terms you cited simply reserve the right.”
Sadly it’s not responding at the moment. At least for me.
Ah yeah, I’m not getting any response from https://archive.ph/ right now :/
E: got it working again after several attempts. Posting raw text
I mean, this is dumb, but it’s only ads specifically shown to you so it isn’t really a privacy issue. The headline seems like it’s intentionally trying to make it seem a lot worse than it is
I don’t why you are so downvoted. Your comment didn’t come off as shilling for Snapchat or anything, and it just clarifies things for people who only read the headline. I appreciate the clarification.
This is still an invasion of privacy, but not quite as egregious as using people’s faces in global advertisements. Obligatory fuck Snapchat, regardless.
It’s still not a feature that users asked for. Hence why making it in the first place, is hiding some darker and creepier objectives.
If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said
“faster horses.“surveillance capitalism.I mean yeah it’s a stupid feature that they probably shouldn’t have, I just think the headline is super misleading since it implies they would use your face to advertise to to others which isn’t true.
The fact they think I want to see my face in ads, is dumb beyond belief. And they spent money on that lol.
What I’m gathering, it’s just the my selfie tool right? I’ve never bothered to set that up anyways
