If You're In the UK or EU, Here's How to Object to Meta's AI Training

Meta quietly changed its commercial terms for business accounts earlier this month, giving itself permission to use content from linked domains, web pages, and URLs to “provide, develop, improve, research, train, and maintain the integrity of” its products. Artists and small business owners who depend on Instagram and Facebook have been furious, especially because the wording can sweep up content tied to Meta accounts, not just posts inside the apps.

There is, for now, a narrow escape hatch for people in the United Kingdom and European Union. Meta first set the new terms to begin on October 30, then pushed the effective date to November 20 after backlash. It also removed the word “train” from one list of allowed uses and narrowed another from all Meta products to “advertising and business products,” but that still leaves broad room for data use.

The legal backdrop matters here. The EU’s GDPR gives people the right to object to the use of their personal data, and the AI Act says people can withdraw consent at any time. The UK has its own GDPR-style rules, and the European Commission says company data can still count as personal data if it identifies a natural person.

Users in the UK and EU have been posting step-by-step instructions for objecting on Instagram. One walkthrough shows the path on mobile: tap the three lines, go to the privacy center, then choose “object,” which opens a form asking why the data use should stop. Another user reported the same result and got an approval email from Meta.

A desktop test with a VPN set to London showed the same kind of options in Meta’s privacy settings: go to the account privacy center, click “Submit a privacy rights request,” select Instagram, and then choose “How can I object to the processing of my information?” That led to separate options to object to Meta AI or to third parties. But from a US location, those options don’t appear, and trying the Meta AI route from London or Belgium returned an error saying the form is only available in certain regions.