I've seen several videos on my feeds spreading a serious, but perhaps not unbelievable, claim: the idea is that on December 16, 2025, Meta will update its privacy policy to allow itself to collect direct messages from users on Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp, all in the name of training its generative AI models. While Meta is not a bastion of user privacy under any circumstances, this particular statement is fortunately not true. The company should not be expected to respect your data, but you also don't have to worry about future versions of Meta AI generating text based on your Instagram direct messages.
If you've seen these statements on your feeds too, you know that they are often quite harsh and exaggerated. Snopes highlights one such viral Instagram post it says: “Every conversation. Every photo. Every voice message. Passed on to AI.” Users browsing Instagram may understandably stop reading these statements, and may also understandably worry about their data in various meta accounts.
The problem is that these statements misconstrue Meta's actual plans to change its privacy policy. With a policy update on December 16, Meta is making changes to the way it collects data about user interactions with Meta AI. Going forward, the data collected from Meta's AI products can be used to personalize the content you see on Meta's platforms, as well as the ads that appear on your feeds. Again, this is simply additional data collection to improve user engagement and ad relevance.
Part of the confusion lies in the way this privacy policy is worded. Consider the following statement, part of Meta's explanation of the user information it uses: “Meta's AI interactions and associated metadata. For example, information that you or other people exchange with the AI in Meta, such as content and messages.” It may sound like Meta is scraping your private messages to train its AI, but it's actually the content and messages you share. With Meta AI is fair game. Simply sending messages and attachments to users on meta platforms does not fall into the Meta AI training data, but if You share these messages and attachments with AI, then it could be.
Meta confirmed this to the media by sending the following statement: “The update mentioned in the viral rumor is not about private messages at all, but about how we will use people's interactions with our AI features to further personalize their experience. We do not use the content of your private messages with friends and family to train our AIs, unless you or someone in the chat decides to share those messages with our AIs. This is also not new and is not part of the December 16th privacy policy update.”
Of course, make no mistake: if you use a meta messaging platform, the company is collecting your data. Meta states in both its current and future privacy policies that the communications you send and receive, including their content as well as their metadata, may, subject to applicable law, be used by Meta for a number of functions. This may include personalizing meta-products for each user; improvement of metaproducts in general; promoting safety and security on its platforms; storing, moving and processing your data around the world; and processing information when required by law.
What are your thoughts so far?
There are now Meta categories No use your messages unless you share those messages with its AI. This includes using your data for analytics and business services; “ensuring uninterrupted operation” of all meta-products; personalization of advertising in Meta Audience Network; research and innovation for “social good”; anonymization of your information; and sharing data with law enforcement agencies. In some of these cases, Meta will collect metadata about your messages (such as the time or location of sending), but not the message data itself.
Again, this article is not intended to flatter Meta; rather, it is to debunk unnecessary fears. Social media posts often distort these nuances of privacy and security, especially when those posts stir up drama. Understand that if you use meta products, your data is collected constantly, but in this case, your messages are not suddenly collected to train the AI.
The best thing you can do to maintain the privacy and security of your metamessages is to use end-to-end encryption (E2EE) whenever possible. WhatsApp has built-in E2EE, and Meta has automatically started rolling it out for Messenger.but you may need to manually start E2EE chat for existing conversations in the app. Same with Instagram: Meta offers E2EE, but you need to enable it yourself. In any app, tap the chat title to check if the conversation is currently E2EE.
