LinkedIn, Meta and their AI

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LinkedIn and Meta are using their users' data without transparency to train their artificial intelligence systems. Again and again the same ethical questions arise, while legislation struggles to keep up with the frenetic pace of “progress”.

This is beginning to be known and understood: we need material to feed artificial intelligence (AI), to train it, to format it. This therefore involves collecting a quantity of data in order to train it, so that it can then correct us, help us, deceive us.

As the reports Century Digital, the recent debates on LinkedIn, Snapchat and Meta reveal a systematic exploitation of information shared by users, often without their knowledge. Despite some semblance of honesty, these Internet giants continue to discreetly manipulate privacy settings, thus feeding ever more sophisticated AI models.

Owned by Microsoft, LinkedIn is taking center stage for the occasion. Chosen mainly by professionals, the platform has integrated a new stage in the exploitation of personal data. The idea is to optimize its algorithms, whether to better personalize the publications displayed or to allow its AI to help us find a job. While some users consider themselves informed, many say they were never informed of the changes made to the privacy policy.

Of course, there is an opt-out option that allows you to control data collection, but you still need to know about it. Especially since it is only called in the future; it would seem that it is impossible to act on past data…

Meta, for its part, admits to having exploited data from public publications since 2007, for the same purpose. While Mark Zuckerberg's company assures that only publications intended for a wide audience are concerned, the details on the quantity of data processed and the collection processes remain vague.

Obviously, all this raises the question of legislation. After all the noise created by the European Digital Services Act, not to mention the famous GDPR, one wonders whether public institutions can really face the GAFAM, even just to resist.

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