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Tuesday, July 14, 2026

Every Way Meta Tracks You, and How to Fight Back

 

A New AI Tool Lets Candidates See What Chatbots Are Telling Voters

NOTUS: “In California’s gubernatorial primary, Tom Steyer had the biggest war chest in a crowded field of Democrats, spending more than $200 million out of his own pocket. But money alone wasn’t enough — he ended up placing third, falling just short in his quest to compete for November’s general election. A contributing factor, according to a case studyshared with NOTUS, was the unflattering response voters were presented with when they asked artificial intelligence-powered chatbots about Steyer’s candidacy.

 In fact, according to most models, the billionaire was just lucky to have made it into the top three. “In ranked lists of working-class affordability candidates, AI explicitly placed him [Steyer] sixth. Cost-of-living: sixth. Education funding: sixth,” the progressive political organization Run for Something reported in its case study, which found that Reddit threads in r/California were frequently cited next to more established mainstream newsrooms like CalMatters.

 As the AI industry continues to pitch its nascent technology as a resource for voters in understanding complicated political matters, there’s little public insight into how models arrive at their conclusions, making it incredibly difficult for candidates and their campaigns to message through the increasingly popular medium…”


Every Way Meta Tracks You, and How to Fight Back

Meta has control over many of the social platforms that people use every day – YouTube. “Since Facebook started in 2004, the company has been fine-tuning how to turn user data from apps like Instagram and WhatsApp into ad revenue. Now Meta’s $1.5 trillion market cap isn’t enough for them, so they’ve been looking for ways to monetize beyond their own platforms. That means that even if you never choose to use a Meta platform or device, you may still be subject to their data-collection schemes. Let us walk you through the many ways Meta surveils you and how to best stay hidden from the Meta machine..”

More on how to stop Meta tracking: https://proton.me/blog/stop-meta-trac…

See also Wired – Meta Now Lets Anyone Use Your Instagram Photos in AI Images—Unless You Opt Out. As part of Meta’s Muse Image model rollout, Instagram users with public accounts need to opt out to block AI generations of their content.

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