Users of Facebook app must make important change now to avoid private chats going PUBLIC

The Sun

21-06-2025

META AI, which has been woven into the Facebook and WhatsApp experience, might be making your private conversations with the chatbot public.
The standalone Meta AI app prompts users to choose to post publicly in the app's Discovery feed by default, a recent report by TechRadar warned.
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When users tap "Share" and "Post to feed," they are sharing their conversations with strangers all around the world.
It is much like a public Facebook post, the report added.
The Discovery feed is plastered with AI -generated images, as well as text conversations.
There's no telling how private these interactions can be - from talking through your relationship woes to drafting a eulogy.
"I've scrolled past people asking Meta AI to explain their anxiety dreams, draft eulogies, and brainstorm wedding proposals," the report wrote.
"It's voyeuristic, and not in the performative way of most social media; it's real and personal."
Meta has a new pop-up warning users that agreeing for their AI chats to land on the Discovery page means strangers can view them.
These conversation snippets aren't just for themselves or their friends to see.
However, accidental sharing remains a possibility.
TechRadar noted that these conversations may even appear elsewhere on Meta platforms, like Facebook, WhatsApp or Instagram.
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Fortunately, you can opt out of having your conversations go public completely through the Meta AI app's settings.
Here's how you can make sure your chats aren't at risk of being shared publicly:
Open the Meta AI app.
Tap your account icon, i.e. your profile picture or initials.
Next, click on Data and Privacy and then tap Manage Your Information.
Then toggle on Make all public prompts visible to only you, and then Apply to all in the pop-up.
This will ensure that when you share a prompt, only you will be able to see it.
To go one step further, you can erase all records of any interaction you've had with Meta AI.
To do this, simply tap Delete all prompts in this same section of the Meta AI app's settings.
This will wipe any prompt you've written, regardless of whether it's been posted, from the app.
It's worth noting that even though you have opted out
Of course, even with the opt-out enabled and your conversations with Meta AI no longer public, Meta still retains the right to use your chats to improve its models.
What is Meta AI?
You may have spotted Meta AI on your social media feed - here's how it works:
Meta AI is a conversational artificial intelligence tool, also known as a chatbot.
It responds to a user's questions in a similar fashion to competitors like ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot.
Meta AI is what's known as generative AI, so called due to its ability to generate content. It can produced text or images in response to a user's request.
The tool is trained on data that's available online. It can mimic patterns commonly found in human language as it provides responses.
Meta AI appears on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger, where it launches a chat when a question is sent.