Facebook users could receive up to $5,000 in compensation for each picture tagged by the company’s photo-scanning AI, it has emerged.
A federal judge has ruled the social media site will be fined between $1,000 to $5,000 every time a user’s image is used without consent.
If you’re wondering what the hell this is all about, the practice was suspended for European users back in 2012 over fears the system was overly intrusive into users’ privacy. However, it’s still very much alive and kicking in the US.
Illinois judge James Donato said:
Consequently, the case will proceed with a class consisting of Facebook users located in Illinois for whom Facebook created and stored a face template after June 7, 2011.
The tag suggestions feature was rolled out across Facebook in June 2011.
PixabayThe other week Mark Zuckerberg – in the midst of the Cambridge Analytica storm – confirmed Facebook scans images and texts to ensure they’re in line with community standards.
He made the revelation during a podcast interview with Vox’s editor at large, Ezra Klein.
Zuckerberg recalled a time when he received a phone call from his staff at Facebook’s Mountain View firm – he was told their systems had blocked attempts to send scandalous Messenger instant messages about ethnic cleansing in Myanmar, reports the Mail Online.
GettyQuizzed about the topic, he said:
In that case, our systems detect what’s going on. We stop those messages from going through.
Messenger doesn’t use data from messages, it scans images and links to find advertising and suspected abuse. Messages are reportedly only read when they’re ‘flagged to moderators’.
A spokeswoman for Facebook Messenger clarified in a statement:
For example, on Messenger, when you send a photo, our automated systems scan it using photo matching technology to detect known child exploitation imagery or when you send a link, we scan it for malware or viruses.
Facebook designed these automated tools so we can rapidly stop abusive behaviour on our platform.
Keeping your messages private is the priority for us, we protect the community with automated systems that detect things like known images of child exploitation and malware. This is not done by humans. We do not listen to your voice and video calls.
Things are seemingly going from worse to worse for the billionaire – last month, it was reported his net worth had dropped by a whopping $5.1 billion in mere hours as the company’s share price plummeted.
The Zuck was hit hardest by the company’s stock dropping almost seven per cent on Monday, March 19.
GettyZuckerberg’s net worth now stands at around $69.5 billion following the erasure of $37 billion in market value.
Facebook is said to be facing a phenomenon known as ‘context collapse’ which basically means, as users share less about themselves online, the data Facebook sells to advertisers becomes less valuable.
By encouraging people to once again share personal information on the site they may be able to increase Facebook’s commercial value.
