Instagram is incorporating users' photos in ads for Meta Glasses

183

nnotRobot about 4 hours ago 76 commentsRead Article on twitter.com

⚡ Community Insights

Discussion Sentiment

60% Positive

Analyzed from 1661 words in the discussion.

Discussion (76 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

Cthulhu_•about 3 hours ago

Didn't Facebook do this years and years ago?

Yes, 2013: https://mashable.com/archive/facebook-ads-photo#ggcKnNfAUaqy

> According to Facebook's Statement of Rights and Responsibilities:

> You give us permission to use your name, profile picture, content, and information in connection with commercial, sponsored, or related content (such as a brand you like) served or enhanced by us. This means, for example, that you permit a business or other entity to pay us to display your name and/or profile picture with your content or information, without any compensation to you. If you have selected a specific audience for your content or information, we will respect your choice when we use it.

So it's not new. If you don't want this, delete your facebook account: https://www.facebook.com/privacy/dialog/delete-your-informat...

smalltorch•about 2 hours ago

Those are incredible terms that no one read.

acdha•about 2 hours ago

I cancelled my Instagram account when they added those terms in the early 2010s. At the time it was mostly photographers reading them and closing accounts but it wasn’t exactly a secret.

DANmode•about 2 hours ago

Speak for yourself.

“Few”, maybe.

satvikpendem•about 1 hour ago

"No one" does not literally mean "not a single individual" in common English parlance, something that everyone (see what I did there?) here understands.

smalltorch•about 2 hours ago

I mean, I read them, but just goes to show the majority of people skipped this important reading.

If anyone actually read them it's typically a unlimited unrestricted pipe of data they can use for anything.

cute_boi•about 2 hours ago

99% of people don't read terms and condition.

rootusrootus•about 1 hour ago

> If you have selected a specific audience for your content or information, we will respect your choice when we use it.

To be fair, if they actually honor this promise, and if it means what it sounds like in plain English -- i.e. that if you only posted your photo for friends, only friends can ever see it even if FB uses it for advertising -- that is a halfway decent mitigation of the issue. Not ideal, but then again, you're not paying for FB, so what did you really expect?

microgpt•about 1 hour ago

"respect your choice" sounds like it means something but doesn't mean something.

pavel_lishin•about 3 hours ago

> If you don't want this, delete your facebook account

What? I thought I could just paste a paragraph of all-caps legalese to my profile, and it would solve this!

pbhjpbhj•about 1 hour ago

To be fair it seems like it should be equally valid in contract law.

steve1977•about 2 hours ago

This made me laugh and cry at the same time...

RattlesnakeJake•about 3 hours ago

Many years ago (back when Facebook still had sidebar ads), my sister was presented with a dating ad for "Hot Christian Singles" accompanied by a photo of our brother.

It was hilarious, but also mind-boggling. In what scenario would pulling in a friend's profile photo create a useful ad?

dewey•about 2 hours ago

> In what scenario would pulling in a friend's profile photo create a useful ad?

Exactly in the scenario you just described. You still remember it and you are actively talking about it years after the fact.

hbn•16 minutes ago

Zero people in the process of creating that ad said "we'll suggest people date their siblings, it'll be so memorable"

That is absolutely not a success story when trying to market a Christian dating platform.

dewey•4 minutes ago

It's about the "in which scenario" question of the OP, not this dating ad in particular.

not_a_bot_4sho•about 2 hours ago

Sounds like the viewers were highly unlikely to have clicked through. Cost the advertiser a view but lost the conversion.

Useful ad for Facebook. They made money on it. The advertiser didn't.

fumblebee•about 2 hours ago

wouldn't "useful ad" imply either 1) clicking through and buying the product or service, or else 2) building up a positive brand association to help increase sales later?

remembering an advert correlates but is different to it being valuable.

svachalek•25 minutes ago

Yeah I remember some studies showed this with overly sexy ads. They were very memorable to the audience but all they remembered was hot chicks, they couldn't recall the product.

RattlesnakeJake•about 2 hours ago

But it didn't bring clicks to the website nor goodwill toward the company.

No one remembers who ran the ad. Even if we did, it would only be in a negative light due to a weird and off-putting advertising approach.

dewey•about 2 hours ago

Don't get hung up on this specific example of the dating ad.

There's a difference between awareness campaigns and click / conversion campaigns and if there's some ads for a garden chair and your friend is sitting on it you'll definitely remember it more than some random model. Or clothes that are advertised on your body. Not saying that's the future we want, but it would definitely work for a while.

boelboel•about 1 hour ago

Many people want to date their own friends? Seeing your friend is on the site would show it's okay to use?

dwa3592•27 minutes ago

This is a ridiculous argument that just because someone still remembers something means it was a good advertising strategy. This is partly why advertising sucks. The correct metric in this case would be did the user actually go on the date with the said person or at least initiated the conversation. In this person's case, very likely not. So the strategy is dumb, ridiculous and laughable but not useful or good in any sense.

PyWoody•about 1 hour ago

Roll tide.

remywang•about 1 hour ago

Just stop using that cursed website

fourside•42 minutes ago

It really is that simple. “Users of company with a long track record of unethical behavior surprised at the company’s latest unethical business decision.”

I know it’s not easy for some to stop using their platform for some reason or another. That’s the point. When you use their product not because they are the best choice in a free market with options, but when you use it because you have to. Just don’t surprised when FB keeps pushing the limits.

penr0se•about 3 hours ago

This shouldn't really be surprising. It's very similar to what they did ~1.5 year ago when they started to use users' photos to promote Meta AI

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42615538

VortexLain•38 minutes ago

Sometimes it seems like Black Mirror screenwriters work at Meta as a side hustle.

srmatto•about 2 hours ago

Is Meta abusing its users a problem? Yes. Does the TOS allow for it? Yes. Can people decide to just create a shell account and not actually participate? Sure.

One of the real insidious problems with Instagram and to some extent Facebook is that they provide a free, low friction way for business to communicate with current or potential customers. As a result many small businesses use Instagram as replacement for a public facing website and perhaps a blog or email newsletter. Many small business in my region depend on Instagram for this purpose, its nearly universal. It helps keep you stuck in Instagram so that you can see a business' hours, menu, or special events. I guess a shell account is the answer but you're still going to have to navigate the skinner box feed.

haliskerbas•about 2 hours ago

Every time I try to create a shell account, it gets banned with no reason given. Even if it's just to follow a few influencer accounts.

srmatto•about 2 hours ago

Well there you go, there is no reasonable way to be a non-participant while also staying up to date on businesses that choose to use the platform.

microgpt•about 1 hour ago

We need a Nitter for Instagram.

burkaman•about 1 hour ago

https://imginn.com/ or https://codeberg.org/irelephant/kittygram

plagiarist•about 1 hour ago

If the only way to interact with a business is via Facebook or Instagram, I don't interact with the business.

Unfortunately this is more of a problem for me than it is for them. I hope my position on this becomes more popular over time so that everyone can stop using spy- and adware.

cute_boi•about 2 hours ago

You can't create shell account on fb/meta anymore. They will ask to turn on camera and rotate your head.

ed_elliott_asc•about 2 hours ago

Print out a face of someone on Facebook and use that?

afavour•about 1 hour ago

It’ll be obvious when you turn “their” head that it’s not real.

catlikesshrimp•about 2 hours ago

U a manequin head. Add hair and moles. It mightbtake more than one try but it works. Eventually, people who make shell accounts will be declared creepy child predators, but that isn't the case, yet.

encomiast•about 2 hours ago

I feel like having an account on a Meta site is today’s equivalent of being a smoker.

nicce•about 2 hours ago

There isn't better analogy. I hope it spreads and we will see the same effect and social pressure as smokers faced.

catlikesshrimp•about 2 hours ago

Vaping is the new smoking. Except you knew what was inside a cigar, while vape liquid is a generic term for anything inside a bottle.

microgpt•about 1 hour ago

https://xcancel.com/venturetwins/status/2071277885646868536

wartywhoa23•20 minutes ago

IG users were the proverbial product on this free-to-partake vanity fair since its inception.

jmorenoamor•26 minutes ago

Why? Because they can, and they will.

Leaving these services looks difficult or impossible, until you do it, and the world just keeps spinning.

tantalor•about 3 hours ago

Comment on that thread:

> This seems entirely counter-productive and creepy.

Apt description of Instagram in general.

halflife•27 minutes ago

I actually find this incredible, since this highlights how desperate they are to advertise these glasses

fullshark•about 3 hours ago

Ten years ago maybe this causes outrage, but I'm not sure anyone cares in 2026 including potential customers.

glimshe•about 1 hour ago

When you don't pay for the product... YOU are the product.

ricardofranco•about 2 hours ago

Something similar happened to me a few years ago. my photo was used in an ad, making it look like I was selling stuff and promoting a page I’d never even clicked on... absolutely mind-blowing....

quadrature•about 3 hours ago

Is there actual proof that they are doing this. Theres not much to go on in the tweet.

tantalor•about 3 hours ago

Besides the proof in the screenshot? What more do you want?

Do you think this user is faking it?

quadrature•about 1 hour ago

Yes people frequently fake screenshots on social media. I'd want either a screenshot from a credible person, reporting from a journalist, trusted blogger, company statement etc.

tantalor•12 minutes ago

I'm not a journalist, but I don't think a reporter would go much further than "one user said...".

There is no need for fact checking an individual source, other than to verify the reporting is accurately representing what they said.

ryan42•about 3 hours ago

yes, it happened to me recently.

The photo wasn't mine, but showed a profile photo of one of my facebook friends, and it had the glasses and said "On my way!"

edoceo•about 2 hours ago

And they have a history of doing this. And their privacy/ToS allows it.

invalidusernam3•about 2 hours ago

"I'm uncomfortable"

Should have read the terms and conditions

onemoresoop•about 2 hours ago

What percentage of people read those? They’re even unitelligible to the layman.

hurfdurf•about 1 hour ago

And that's how the HUMANCENTiPAD keeps growing.

dylan604•about 1 hour ago

Hey Siri, find the gotchas in this EULA being presented /s

Zhyl•about 3 hours ago

The XKCD for this exact scenario is 14 years old.

https://xkcd.com/1150/

fullshark•about 3 hours ago

Kind of a stretch, these days can't imagine anyone that views instagram as a place to store their cherished photos also.

jijijijij•36 minutes ago

Yeah, and then the charging businesses start selling your stuff anyway. So really, it's the comic creator, who is naive.

doublerabbit•about 3 hours ago

Some reason that strip doesn't load for me.

nicce•about 2 hours ago

It is just saying that if you don't pay for something, you are the product. I think it still fits well here.

jimt1234•about 2 hours ago

I don't know what's worse - this, or all the ads/commercials for Meta Glasses featuring Kylie Jenner, like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yYQO8exxaU

ThouYS•about 2 hours ago

why are people using these products exactly?

signing away their rights to their photos? making psychopaths filthy rich?

if the surveillance glasses are coming, these people will also have signed away the commons, which are not theirs to give away

literalAardvark•about 1 hour ago

The surveillance glasses are nearing 3rd gen.

You'd know that if you used social media /s

ThePowerOfFuet•about 3 hours ago

https://xcancel.com/venturetwins/status/2071277885646868536

kuschkufan•about 3 hours ago

i edited it to the same url before opening as i usually do for twitter urls so that i can see the full conversation without being logged into twitter.

for some reason the url rewrote iteself to this: https://themenspiegel.click/c/de/52_merzchrupalla/?method=po...

which is a german language scam site. i have no explanation how this happened, whether it is xcancel.com doing this or something loaded from twitter that caused xcancel to do this. never seen anythin like it before, would like to know more.

btw any further reloads of the xcancel url to that tweet totally work as expected.

pavel_lishin•about 3 hours ago

Throwing an additional anecdote into the bucket, this did not happen for me. Any chance you have a dodgy extension installed?

jijijijij•42 minutes ago

Doubt. xcancel.com does not even seem to have any advertisements at all, when I disable ublock. Site seems remarkable clean, no thirdparty connections apart from a cdn. Sure you didn't type cancelx.com? Cause there something shady is going on. Otherwise, I would strongly suggest checking your extensions or system for malware.

jadamson•about 2 hours ago

Sure you didn't just make a typo and hit a squatted domain?

hsuduebc2•about 3 hours ago

I mean, what would you expect from company with morality of tobacco and slot machines producer? This is the least evil they are doing.

This thing resurface from time to time. It's the small text you never read. In this case, small part in ridiculously and intentionally big eula.

avgDev•36 minutes ago

I am surprised with the downvotes. Meta is the new tobacco corp.