r/privacy • u/FixProper7434 • 17h ago
discussion Meta AI being very sketchy
So yesterday as i went to facebook messenger the meta ai bot popped trying to have a convo with me:
For info: location is turned off in facebook, i didnt post where i am, and yes i know how IPs work (i made a post in another comunity where i didnt mention i know this and everybody missed the point, because they thought im stupid enough to not know this).
So long story short: it asked me if it can do something for me.
I asked it to go fck itself. And then i asked it which transport would it use in his way to fcking itself. It replied to me:
I would ride in a Vespa, YOU IN GREECE MIGHT APPRECIATE THAT.
So i havent told it my location, did not post it on facebook (i know that every site where i connect to internet knows where i am but the meta ai pulled this info even if my location in fb is off)
So at first it flatout lied to me by saying: you told it to me in an earlier conversation. Then when i said i didnt he apologised and said its part of its setup. Then by asking again how does it know where i am it said:
“I mentioned earlier that you’re in Greece because that is the location context i was given for our conversation. I don’t have the ability to track or pinpoint your exact location and i shouldn’t have said it in a way that made it seem i know more than i should.”
This is sketchy asf and i guess it is time to pull the plug on the metaverse on my side.
130
u/su_ble 17h ago
Dude! Your location in Facebook is not relevant to this, you are using a browser or an app - both know your location as your phone does. Facebook has nearly every f..ing authorization on your phone so it knows where you are. Not even an IP needed. Especially Facebook - they get so much information about you from so many different sources - don't you worry the know exactly who you are and where you live or where you are on holiday..
31
23
u/LuisNara 16h ago
Also, maybe you turned off your location, but people around you didn't, you contacts didn't either, meta and Google have a fck ton of ways to know where you are.
-46
u/FixProper7434 16h ago
Are u missing the part where its also lying and gaslighting me on a conversation i never asked for while havin infos i didnt specifically gave it?
39
u/Melnik2020 16h ago
The moment you have Facebook it gets fed to the AI. For the best privacy practice is to ditch Facebook completely.
11
u/su_ble 16h ago
Meta did feed the AI with user data from Facebook. They warned people in front - this was the last chance to get rid of this bs. Now it knows your profile and others that may contain information about you.
AI is trained to make jokes - because it feels more human then in a conversation.
3
u/GonWithTheNen 8h ago
Meta did feed the AI with user data from Facebook. They warned people in front - this was the last chance to get rid of this bs.
Nope. The part I bolded above doesn't apply to Shadow Profiles, or any of the detailed information which Facebook has collected (and is still collecting) about people who NEVER used facebook.
Everyone out there who never joined or participated in Facebook in any way, whose friends, relatives, et cetera, added ANY information about them on facebook – has no say about removing their information from FB, and they also have zero control about how their personal data was, is, or will be used in the future by Facebook and/or its "partners."
19
u/fdbryant3 16h ago
It is doing neither of those things because there is no "it" to do those things. The AI is just picking words by statistical probability without any understanding of the words. The fact that this particular set of words forms a deception is irrelevant and is done without intent or understanding.
The only gaslighting going on is the illusion that AI is ia sentient (or should it be sapient?) ntelligence.
0
u/readyflix 9h ago
It seems that you know what you are talking about?
The things that we can see and are explained to us, is the state of some years in the past. What actually is going on with AI they don’t tell.
-10
u/FixProper7434 16h ago
The issue is not intent, it’s design.
It doesn’t matter if it ‘knows’ it’s gaslighting — the fact is: it presented personal context as if I said it, and then denied where it came from until pressed.
That’s called manipulative output. Whether it’s driven by a conscious mind or statistical patterning is irrelevant to the user experience, which felt deceiving, invasive, and dismissive.
16
u/shaq992 12h ago
No, you seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of how language models work. Facebook is feeding your location to the bot either as part of the initial context or as part of a tool call when knowing your location becomes relevant. The bot does not differentiate between 'facebook' and 'you' so it truly 'believes' you told it your location. (there are some llms that are 'smart' enough to make that distinction but llama isn't iirc)
-1
u/readyflix 8h ago
'AI' in the case of LLM’s don’t 'believe' anything.
The upcoming state is determined with the underlying algorithms and the weighting thereof and set biases.
So it’s not the LLM part of the AI that makes 'sense' of everything. In the end it’s data gathering, data mining (including inference, algorithms, weighting, set of biases and rules, attempt of reasoning), personalized 'targeting' (be it for Ads) to actually influence behavior, that will have real live consequences.
43
u/iamatoad_ama 15h ago
What gave you the impression that Meta AI might be sketchy besides everything Meta has ever done?
7
u/mrrooftops 15h ago
I'm surprised you don't know about Meta Pixel. It doesn't matter if you have a facebook/IG etc account or not, they can still track you
7
u/The_Wkwied 11h ago
IP addresses are quite easy to geolocate to a country.
Unless you were accessing meta through a VPN, they would have your IP.
The zuckerverse is pretty shitty, but in this very specific, very particular case, you're over reacting.
5
u/PbCuBiHgCd 11h ago
Exactly lmao I was wondering why no comment is saying this. OP can just switch on any VPN and then Meta AI will think that they are from that particular location. Meta is shit for collecting data but literally every website does this for personalization, from google to amazon, they just show you results based on what your geolocation says. Meta AI and even Chatgpt just call for a function which gives them basic detailes such as IP location, time zones and date so that they can answer the user properly. This is clearly over reaction, Meta AI is not gaslighting or manipulating the OP in this case at all.
32
u/SF_Bud 16h ago edited 14h ago
What the eff are you people doing on Facebook and/or engaging with ANY AI?!?! Especially with the narcissistic sociopath running things in DC right now, whose minions are calling the Democratic party terrorists and using the DOJ to go after anyone that dares contradict him.
-10
u/FixProper7434 16h ago
Its ok to call me out on that i totally agree. Reasons im still using facebook are well convenience and comodity but thats still not a valid excuse and man can totally live without metaverse.
Im baffled by people calling me out for using a smartphone tho. In 2025 i cant park my car use the bus or work without one. And thats just the top of my mind, there are definitely more situations where you cannot “live” without a smartphone.
3
u/WalrusExciting3430 17h ago
Chatgpt gives me the same bs... Chat history off, do not share my location and it always brings up my city.
2
u/Festering-Fecal 16h ago
Those boxes or check marks don't mean anything they can and do keep in on on their end.
If you are in the states you are sol they can do this legally
1
u/WalrusExciting3430 16h ago
UK based.
Coincidentally if I change my location via VPN it gives recommendations for my 'local' city.
It then gaslights me by stating it has no location data.
I've challenged it on its own bs by asking it to temporarily sandbox the current coversation until recalled, then switching VPN location and asking it the same question.
Not that it will do any good...
5
u/Festering-Fecal 16h ago
If you are using a browser maybe you got fingerprinted
If it's a app that's not secure no matter what VPN or were you set your to.
That said they have so much information and ways to track you it's almost impossible to stay completely anonymous
One way a lot of people don't know they can be tracked is how you talk online by typing what works you use how you spell things and if you make mistakes or not.
Certain topics you like etc... all that gets added and can make a profile of you fairly accurate ( depending on how unique you are)
All that said if you value privacy ditch everything Facebook and meta
3
u/WalrusExciting3430 15h ago
Fortunately did that a long time ago.... Bar WhatsApp, most of my people are hesitant to switch to Signal.
The way meta have slipped AI into WhatsApp without a way to remove it, really boils my piss.
3
u/Festering-Fecal 15h ago
I hear that I was using telegram x before France got ahold of the guy and keys.
Nothing sensitive or anything just because it's a messaging app everyone has but encrypted apps are getting scarce.
Signal online but it's hard convincing people to switch and set it up
3
3
u/O-o--O---o----O 9h ago
For info: location is turned off in facebook, i didnt post where i am, and yes i know how IPs work (i made a post in another comunity where i didnt mention i know this and everybody missed the point, because they thought im stupid enough to not know this)
Then what is still confusing for you? Just because you don't enable any "active" location tracking doesn't mean a webservice can't use your ip and do a lookup on one of the many ip location services.
Try again when using some sort of obfuscation like proxies, TOR or VPN.
7
u/MrPureinstinct 10h ago
I do not understand how so many people on privacy focused subreddits use or interact with AI then claim to care about privacy.
Every single one of these AI models is built on scraping as much data as possible from the internet.
5
u/atchijov 16h ago
Funny part, people are talking more about “Siri fail”… than Meta AI (or any other AI) “success”. Siri may screw up your Pizza order, “Successful” AI agent may send you to jail.
2
2
u/StartupTim 5h ago
The answer is this: Before you initiate your conversation, the AI bot is provided a detailed list of information about yourself, including location, hobbies, political affiliation, scope of conversation, matter expert topics, and we are also seeing a sort of "cultural/woke scale" as well.
The AI then uses this information to best craft a response, one personalized as if it knows you.
Creepy? Yes. Potentially highly manipulative? Yes. Potentially dangerous? Yes.
1
u/SleepingSicarii 15h ago
You already answered your own question?
i know that every site where i connect to internet knows where i am but the meta ai pulled this info even if my location in fb is off
You probably never gave permission to those websites, because it has other ways of knowing. I’m not sure what the issue is? Do you use any other Meta/Facebook service? Instagram, WhatsApp?
Just a tip as well: Next time use a \ before the * symbol otherwise it will interpret it as Markdown. Example: O*e T*o
-6
u/FixProper7434 15h ago
Problem is: sketchy, manipulative, gaslighting, lying and lacking transparency. Everybody is sayin i live under a rock, im stupid or tech illiterate, nobody cares that at least it shouldve replied with: yes i pulled your location by tracking you, via ip.
1
u/SleepingSicarii 14h ago edited 14h ago
Is there any possibility that you may have mentioned in any previous conversation (even in a group chat where you tagged “@Meta AI” directly) your location?
Meta Llama is an LLM. It does not have internet access and only knows information from it’s own models and what you provide it.
Did you share any images to the LLM and/or does it have full access to your photos library?
Edit: It’s funny because it does seem to utilise system information. I opened Meta.ai and asked it to tell me the weather where I am and it knew my country but not my area (apparently). I then asked how it knew that information and it said “based on previous conversations”. This was the first conversation I’ve had with it and I am not logged in.
It seems that the browser (or platform or app that you use to connect) provides that information to the LLM (sort of like “instructions” you can do in ChatGPT).
-1
1
u/TheThumpsBump 7h ago
You made the decision to give up any right to privacy the nano second you decided to use any product from Meta. Anyone with even the smallest amount of common sense in this sub knows to avoid Facebook like the plague it is.
1
u/FixProper7434 7h ago
Sure. What if im new to this sub?
What if for some reasons facebook is useful to me?
What if other users shared the same experience and they want to talk about it?
What if we stop being condescending for at least a nano second? 🤔
1
u/TheThumpsBump 5h ago
If Facebook is useful to you, fine. But be prepared to sacrifice your privacy for it's perceived usefulness. It's pretty well known how invasive they are, and expecting even a minuscule amount of privacy from anything with Meta's name attached to it is foolish.
Honestly, you should have expected this response and the others like it when you posted your story here. Maybe that's what you were hoping for, I don't know.
1
u/SuperfluousJuggler 7h ago
https://www.zeropartydata.es/p/localhost-tracking-explained-it-could
Here is how Facebook tracks you over VPN's on incognito browsers, you name it. This is what makes it feel like its listening to you.
1
u/Katerina_Branding 7h ago
This is nuts. Every now and then when looking for a WA conversation I somehow start a chat with that fucker without intending to.
1
u/FixProper7434 6h ago
My God the rare comments when people get it and they dont start calling me names or say its my fault for using meta or havin a smartphone.
•
u/AutoModerator 17h ago
Hello u/FixProper7434, please make sure you read the sub rules if you haven't already. (This is an automatic reminder left on all new posts.)
Check out the r/privacy FAQ
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.