If you use Facebook, be on the lookout for this (or a similar) email:
Why should you take notice?
Because unless you object, this means Facebook can take ANYTHING you post – blurbs, excerpts, synopses, elevator pitches, book covers etc. – and feed it to its AI as learning material. The AI can then conceivably take your material, change it slightly, and regurgitate it.
For example, it could take your cover, change the a few details of the title and author name, and offer the modified version to other writers to use. You could find hundreds of versions of your book for sale ‘by’ other authors.
What’s the answer to this terrifying scenario?
Opt out
Take another look at the copy of that letter above. See the ‘right to object’ link?
Click on it and you will be taken to a form where you can object.
The form asks you for your country of residence and your email address, and then has a box for your objection. You need to use the right keywords to get it to accepted, and here is an example which works, offered by the author, Rayne Hall, who alerted me to this whole unpalatable situation.
“I’m a writer and artist. My stories, articles, books, poems, images, photos and designs are original works of my creativity. My livelihood depends on protecting them. I own the copyright to them, and they are my legal intellectual property…”
You click on ‘submit’ and then a popup tells you it sent a verification code to your email, which you need to submit within an hour.
Typically, I tried this step twice but no email arrived, so I tried a different email address and got it instantly. The messages to the original address arrived 5 hours later!
It then told me it would consider my objection and come back to me soon, and it did! This is the message I received within about 10 minutes:
There appear to be slight variations in the email sent out to people in different countries, so be on the lookout and don’t just delete an email that mentions updating the privacy policy.
Be aware: if you do nothing, you are giving your consent, and then you will have no legal regress.
Terrifying, isn’t it?
deborahjay 
This is very worrying. I haven’t actually had this email.
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Keep a sharp eye out. They seem to be arriving in dribs and drabs, perhaps as they deal with complaints?
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😡very worrying !
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It is. The world is changing faster than ever, and not always in a good way
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I know 🙄
Thanks for the heads up 👍
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Update: I’ve found the message, it was one I overlooked a few days ago! I’ve now put in my objection and they’ve honoured it. Thank you so much for the heads-up, without that I wouldn’t even have known about this.
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That’s the reason I highlighted it, it’s far too easy just to delete without reading
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Clicking through… I already apply a notice to my blogs but I’m sure that’s not even close to enough for the Gods of AI.
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Definitely not, I would hazard
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Oh geez, thanks for the heads up, Debby. As far as I can recall, I haven’t received this notice yet.
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I would search your emails, it might have slipped through when you weren’t aware you needed to take notice of it!
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Thanks for the heads up, Debby. I don’t use Facebook much, but I did catch the similar message on WordPress. Yikes.
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Oh wow, I’ve not noticed it on WP! I will keep an eye out, AI is taking over the world 😔
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WP won’t send a notification. Look under Settings/General/Privacy. Then check the box to “Prevent third-party sharing … including those training for AI.”
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Fabulous tip! Thank you 👌
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🙂
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Deborah, this is scary! I will look in my deleted emails. I think I saw something like this recently. That would make me furious if my work was stolen by an evil AI ‘Thing’. Thanks for your warning.
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Yeah, if I hadn’t had the warning from another author I would simply have deleted the email without bothering to read it. We get so many updates to rules and conditions, who takes the time to read them all?
I thoroughly object to having my work stolen by anyone, let alone an AI that can regurgitate it so easily with minor changes and pass it off as original.
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Like others, I thoroughly object to have my work plagiarized. I went into my account and got lost in all the data. However, I did succeed in sending a message to Facebook about my concerns. Thanks you so much, Deborah!
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They do an amazing job of hiding their most insidious changes so deeply it’s a wonder anyone ever finds them!
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It bothered me that even if I objected they might not accept it. Fortunately, they did…
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So far they seem fine about accepting ojections – long may that continue!
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Very concerning. I haven’t seen this email yet but will look for it.
thank you!
Blessings
Lisa
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I wouldn’t have spotted it if I hadn’t already been warned – it’s just another udate to Ts & Cs unless you know to look out for it.
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