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By Monika Cvorak
November 24, 2025
Meta buried ’causal’ evidence of social media harm, US court filings allege
Leading tech companies are in a race to release and improve artificial intelligence (AI) products, leaving users in the United States to puzzle out how much of their personal data could be extracted to train AI tools.
Meta (which owns Facebook, Instagram, Threads and WhatsApp), Google and LinkedIn have all rolled out AI app features that have the capacity to draw on users’ public profiles or emails. Google and LinkedIn offer users ways to opt out of the AI features, while Meta’s AI tool provides no means for its users to say “no, thanks.”
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“Gmail just flipped a dangerous switch on October 10, 2025 and 99% of Gmail users have no idea,” a November 8 Instagram post said.
Posts warned that the platforms’ AI tool rollouts make most private information available for tech company harvesting. “Every conversation, every photo, every voice message, fed into AI and used for profit,” a November 9 X video about Meta said.
Starting December 16th, Meta will start feeding all your data to AI. This video is an instructional on how to turn these settings off. pic.twitter.com/BUJagaMr5b
— David Wolfe (@DavidWolfe) November 9, 2025
Technology companies are rarely fully transparent when it comes to the user data they collect and what they use it for, Krystyna Sikora, a research analyst for the Alliance for Securing Democracy at the German Marshall Fund, told PolitiFact.
“Unsurprisingly, this lack of transparency can create significant confusion that in turn can lead to fear mongering and the spread of false information about what is and is not permissible,” Sikora said.
The best – if tedious – way for people to know and protect their privacy rights is to read the terms and conditions, since it often explicitly outlines how the data will be used and whether it will be shared with third parties, Sikora said. The US doesn’t have any comprehensive federal laws on data privacy for technology companies.
Here’s what we learned about how each platform’s AI is handling your data:
Social media claim: “Starting December 16th Meta will start reading your DMs, every conversation, every photo, every voice message fed into AI and used for profit.” – November 9 X post with 1.6 million views as of November 19.
The facts: Meta announced a new policy to take effect December 16, but that policy alone does not result in your direct messages, photos and voice messages being fed into its AI tool. The policy involves how Meta will customise users’ content and advertisements based on how they interact with Meta AI.
For example, if a user interacts with Meta’s AI chatbot about hiking, Meta might start showing that person recommendations for hiking groups or hiking boots.
But that doesn’t mean your data isn’t being used for AI purposes. Although Meta doesn’t use people’s private messages in Instagram, WhatsApp or Messenger to train its AI, it does collect user content that is set to “public” mode. This can include photos, posts, comments and reels. If the user’s Meta AI conversations involve religious views, sexual orientation and racial or ethnic origin, Meta says the system is designed to avoid parlaying these interactions into ads. If users ask questions of Meta AI using its voice feature, Meta says the AI tool will use the microphone only when users give permission.
There is a caveat: The tech company says its AI might use information about people who don’t have Meta product accounts if their information appears in other users’ public posts. For example, if a Meta user mentions a non-user in a public image caption, that photo and caption could be used to train Meta AI.
Can you opt out? No. If you are using Meta platforms in these ways – making some of your posts public and using the chatbot – your data could be used by Meta AI. There is no way to deactivate Meta AI in Instagram, Facebook or Threads. WhatsApp users can deactivate the option to talk with Meta AI in their chats, but this option is available only per chat, meaning that you must deactivate the option in each chat’s advanced privacy settings.
The X post inaccurately advised people to submit this form to opt out. But the form is simply a way for users to report when Meta’s AI supplies an answer that contains someone’s personal information.
David Evan Harris, who teaches AI ethics at the University of California, Berkeley, told PolitiFact that because the US has no federal regulations about privacy and AI training, people have no standardised legal right to opt out of AI training in the way that people in countries such as Switzerland, the United Kingdom and South Korea do.
Even when social media platforms provide opt-out options for US customers, it’s often difficult to find the settings to do so, Harris said.
Deleting your Meta accounts does not eliminate the possibility of Meta AI using your past public data, Meta’s spokesperson said.
Social media claim: “Did you know Google just gave its AI access to read every email in your Gmail – even your attachments?” – November 8 Instagram post with more than 146,000 likes as of November 19.
The facts: Google has a host of products that interact with private data in different ways. Google announced on November 5 that its AI product, Gemini Deep Research, can connect to users’ other Google products, including Gmail, Drive and Chat. But, as Forbes reported, users must first give permission to employ the tool.
Users who want to allow Gemini Deep Research to have access to private information across products can choose what data sources to employ, including Google search, Gmail, Drive and Google Chat.
There are other ways Google collects people’s data:
A Google spokesperson told PolitiFact the company doesn’t use this information to train AI when registered users are under age 13.
Google can also access people’s data when they have smart features activated in their Gmail and Google Workplace settings (that are automatically on in the US), which gives Google consent to draw on email content and user activity data to help users compose emails or suggest Google Calendar events. With optional paid subscriptions, users can access additional AI features, including in-app Gemini summaries.
Turning off Gmail’s smart features can stop Google’s AI from accessing Gmail, but it doesn’t stop Google’s access to the Gemini app, which users can either download or access in a browser.
A California lawsuit accuses Gemini of spying on users’ private communications. The lawsuit says an October policy change gives Gemini default access to private content such as emails and attachments in people’s Gmail, Chat and Meet. Before October, users had to manually allow Gemini to access the private content; now, users must go into their privacy settings to disable it. The lawsuit claims the Google policy update violates California’s 1967 Invasion of Privacy Act, a law that prohibits unauthorised wiretapping and recording confidential communications without consent.
Can you opt out? If people don’t want their conversations used to train Google AI, they can use “temporary” chats or chat without signing into their Gemini accounts. Doing that means Gemini can’t save a person’s chat history, a Google spokesperson said. Otherwise, opting out of having Google’s AI in Gmail, Drive and Meet requires turning off smart features in settings.
Social media claim: Starting November 3, “LinkedIn will begin using your data to train AI.” – November 2 Instagram post with more than 18,000 likes as of November 19.
The facts: LinkedIn, owned by Microsoft, announced on its website that starting November 3, it will use some US members’ data to train content-generating AI models.
The data the AI collects includes details from people’s profiles and public content that users post.
The training does not draw on information from people’s private messages, LinkedIn said.
LinkedIn also said, aside from the AI data access, that Microsoft started receiving information about LinkedIn members – such as profile information, feed activity and ad engagement – as of November 3 in order to target users with personalised ads.
Can you opt out? Yes. Autumn Cobb, a LinkedIn spokesperson, confirmed to PolitiFact that members can opt out if they don’t want their content used for AI training purposes. They can also opt out of receiving targeted, personalised ads.
To remove your data from being used for training purposes, go to data privacy, click on the option that says “Data for Generative AI Improvement” and then turn off the feature that says “use my data for training content creation AI models.”
And to opt out of personalised ads, go to advertising data in settings, and turn off ads on LinkedIn and the option that says “data sharing with our affiliates and select partners”.
By SwimSwam Partner Content on SwimSwam
Courtesy of A3 Performance, a SwimSwam partner.
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Good morning. If F1 has suddenly appeared on your radar over the past few years, it’s due to a few factors: Liberty Media, team CEOs like McLaren Racing’s Zak Brown, consumer shifts, and the increasing role that sports play in corporate marketing. Liberty Media acquired Formula 1 racing from a consortium of investors in 2017 at a valuation of $8 billion and has since tripled that value through partnering to create U.S. races, Netflix’s Formula 1: Drive to Survive series, an F1 movie, the F1 Academy woman’s circuit, fashion, influencer marketing and broadcast reach that will further expand with an Apple partnership next year.
“We were a very exclusive sport, ‘look, don’t touch,’ and Liberty brought a new way of thinking,” Brown said in the latest Fortune Leadership Next podcast. “We figured out how to let people in the tent to engage with the sport”—be it the drivers, the team, the technology, the drama off the grid or the idiosyncrasies of the sport itself.
At the Formula 1 Heineken Las Vegas Grand Prix this weekend, I saw evidence of both the democratization of the sport and the move to a two-tiered experience economy in which brands tailor special packages for the top. LVMH is now F1’s global luxury partner and many individuals I met had flown in from across the world and paid thousands of dollars to see the race from the Paddock Club and suites like House 44, F1’s collaboration with Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton and Soho House. High-end American Express cardholders could sample ‘The Only Caviar’ with co-founders Breaking Bad star Aaron Paul and Michelin-star chef Diego Sabino at the Aria resort. At the same time, more mainstream consumer brands are also backing F1, like PepsiCo, LEGO, Disney, and Hello Kitty.
The 10-team sport generated more than $2 billion in direct sponsorships last year and is accelerating in value; top F1 teams are worth more than most NBA franchises and European soccer clubs. Exhibit A: Mercedes team principal and part-owner Toto Wolff’s deal last week to sell a 15% stake to CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz, which values the team at $6 billion.
McLaren, meanwhile, has gone from facing insolvency five years ago to making a profit of $61 million last year, with more to come, thanks to a new sponsorship deal with Mastercard that will reportedly bring in around $100 million a year. But the ultimate measure of performance is still on the track. McLaren saw drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri get disqualified after placing second and fourth in the Vegas Grand Prix because officials found both cars had technical infringements. That’s heartbreaking for McLaren and makes for good TV in a season in which Brown’s team has already secured the top place but individual drivers are still battling for first. As Brown put it on the podcast: “We’re in the sports and entertainment business.” Click here to listen to the podcast on Apple or Spotify.
Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at diane.brady@fortune.com
Ukraine peace deal
Ukrainian and American officials say they’ve made positive progress on a U.S.-drafted deal to end Russia’s invasion after many Ukrainians initially claimed the accord was too favorable for the Kremlin. President Donald Trump has imposed a deadline of Thursday for the deal and lashed out at Ukraine as talks progressed, accusing it of being ungrateful for American support.
White collar unemployment
Americans with four-year university degrees now make up a quarter of the unemployed, a record, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. College grads’ unemployment rate of 2.8% in September—up half a percentage point from a year ago—reflects the recent slowdown in white collar hiring.
Tariff backup plan
The White House is reportedly drafting backup plans should the U.S. Supreme Court strike down President Donald Trump’s tariffs on the basis that he doesn’t have the power to impose them unilaterally. The alternative avenues for enacting levies will likely be slower or more limited in scope.
Tariff risks fade
Meanwhile, on earnings calls, executives are talking less about tariffs risks than they were earlier this year as the levies’ true fallout takes hold. A WSJ analysis of 5,000 earnings calls found that of calls that mentioned tariffs, about 20% mentioned associated risks in November, down from a high of roughly 55% in mid-June.
Britain’s new media giant
The owner of The Daily Mail will buy rival newspaper, The Telegraph, in a £500 million deal that will create a new right-leaning media giant in the U.K. as the Reform Party gains popularity as a counter to the ruling Labour Party.
Shein’s first store
Shein’s first physical location in Paris is rattling lawmakers and fellow retailers who say the Chinese ecommerce giant’s ultra low prices pose an existential threat to traditional department stores.
Pershing Square to go public
Bill Ackman is preparing to take his hedge fund management company Pershing Square public along with a new closed-end investment fund, Pershing Square USA. Both could launch as early as the first quarter of 2026 if market conditions permit.
Massive AI companies come together
OpenAI, Nvidia, and other tech companies have joined forces in the Stargate Project, a massive $500 billion undertaking to build advanced AI infrastructure in the U.S., with backing from the federal government. Although the collaboration is praised for bolstering national AI capabilities, a Yale legal expert warns it may violate antitrust laws by allowing major rivals to coordinate closely in ways that could reduce competition, increase prices, and stifle innovation in the tech industry.
S&P 500 futures were up 0.25% this morning. The last session closed up 0.98%. STOXX Europe 600 was up 0.39% in early trading. The U.K.’s FTSE 100 was up 0.12% in early trading. Japan’s stock market is closed today. China’s CSI 300 was down 0.12%. The South Korea KOSPI was down 0.19%. India’s NIFTY 50 is down 0.42%. Bitcoin was up at $86K.
The analyst who once predicted the ‘end of capitalism’ sees Zohran Mamdani as a ‘day of reckoning coming in’—and corporates only have themselves to blame by Nick Lichtenberg
Shark Tank star Robert Herjavec says the best Gen Z career advice comes from Mark Cuban—it’s that nobody cares if you’re ‘passionate’ by Preston Fore
As Google eyes exponential surge in serving capacity, analyst says we’re entering ‘stage two of AI’ where bottlenecks are physical constraints by Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez
CEO Daily is compiled and edited by Joey Abrams and Claire Zillman.
A bunch of materials called rare earth elements (REE) that are crucial for producing a vast range of tech products – from electric cars to smartphones to wind turbines – typically require destructive mining and processing practices to get them out of the ground. A team of scientists in China might have just found another source for them that’s easier to reach: ferns.
The researchers, led by geochemist Liuqing He of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, discovered for the first time that the fern species Blechnum orientale, naturally crystallizes REE minerals within its tissues above ground in ordinary conditions. That’s starkly different from how REEs are typically found on Earth, concentrating in small quantities as compounds in certain types of igneous rocks as magma cools.
This finding, documented in the team’s study that appeared in the journal Environmental Science & Technology earlier this month, could drastically reduce our need for mining to extract REEs. And since they’re mixed in with other elements, they need to be chemically separated through different processes, this causes destruction to topsoil and vegetation in REE-rich regions, as well as water and air pollution.
REEs aren’t actually all that rare – they’re scattered around the world, but just not found in voluminous veins like gold. That said, China overwhelmingly dominates the REE supply chain today – the country controls roughly 70% of global rare earth mining and an even larger share of processing capacity, and therefore controls access to these resources.
So how is this happening? Blechnum orientale is what’s called a hyperaccumulator plant, which means it’s capable of growing in soil with extremely high levels of heavy metals – which would normally be toxic to other species – and absorbs these elements through its roots.
We’ve known about such plants for a while, but He told Newsweek that what’s notable here is, “this fern can facilitate REE mineralization (that is, produce minerals – geologically very important REE minerals – specifically the mineral monazite, that previously was only known to occur in rocks that had been subjected to high temperatures and pressures deep within the Earth). Now, here is monazite growing under Earth surface conditions (the same temperatures and pressures under which humans live). The mineral growing in the plant is nano-size (that is, extremely small monazite particles which also happen to be an industrially significant rare-earth mineral).”
The monazite He referred to is a prominent source of REEs. The discovery, which involved powerful microscopic imaging and chemical analysis techniques of the fern growing in South China, points to the possibility of leveraging a process called phytomining – using hyperaccumulator plants to extract metals from soil – for harvesting otherwise hard-to-obtain REEs.
This could prove to be a major breakthrough to help address the ongoing struggle among countries worldwide to secure REE supplies. In electric cars specifically, neodymium, dysprosium, and praseodymium are primarily used in the powerful permanent magnets inside the motors that drive EVs. REEs also show up in several places in your phone: from the display to the magnets that power the speaker and vibration motor, to the camera lenses, to the circuitry.
So this fern isn’t yet producing REEs in vast quantities, but the study reveals that we still know very little about the possibilities of phytomining these valuable elements. The researchers will need to figure out whether B. orientale is the only species capable of self-organizing REEs from various elements, or if others do it too. They also hope to develop a method to extract the monazite and breaking it down into its component REEs without losing too much of the resource in the process.
“This discovery reveals an alternative pathway for monazite mineralization under remarkably mild conditions and highlights the unique role of plants in initiating such processes,” noted the researchers.
Source: Nature
Best known for the iconic role of Veeru in the all-time great Sholay, Dharmendra was India’s “most handsome actor”.
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Eluned Morgan, first minister of Wales, has sought to distance herself from the Labour government in London on welfare and immigration as she fights for her political survival.
In an interview ahead of Senedd elections in May, she told the Financial Times: “I am going to be much firmer in making sure that it is Welsh Labour and the red Welsh way. Keir Starmer is not on the ballot paper in this election.”
Asked about changes to the immigration system announced by Labour last week and rhetoric on the issue in Westminster, Morgan said she would not be “making tough anti-immigration noises”. The first minister also said she believed the national government’s bungled attempt to remove winter fuel payments from pensioners had also been a mistake which “damaged us”.
The first minister met the FT at the Senedd, in Cardiff Bay, whose debating chamber is closed for refurbishment to accommodate a rise in members from 60 to 96 as part of a shake-up of the voting system. The cordoned-off assembly is a visual metaphor for a country facing political change.
Polls suggest Labour will lose control of the parliament in May for the first time since it was set up 26 years ago, with either the populist right-wing Reform UK or the nationalist Plaid Cymru emerging in the lead.
In a recent Senedd by-election in Caerphilly, a former stronghold for Labour for a century, Plaid narrowly beat Reform with the Labour candidate picking up only 11 per cent.
The 57-year-old Morgan, who has been first minister for just over a year, said all is not lost, although some polls suggest she is unlikely to win her own race, in the new constituency of Ceredigion Penfro.
Asked if she will be a Senedd member by next summer, she said: “I am going to work my socks off to make sure I do. I am confident that with a lot of hard work, we can turn this around.”
Part of that message involves trying to amplify areas where she believes Labour has delivered for the Welsh public: “We have free prescriptions. Many people don’t realise that’s not offered in England. We have a cap on care of £100 per week. There’s no limit in England. If you look at free hospital parking, free school meals in primary schools, we have delivered.”
Plaid’s counter-argument is that, under Labour, schoolchildren in Wales have the worst performance in the UK in the Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) tests, child poverty figures are worryingly high and some health targets have been missed.
Morgan’s attempts to save Welsh Labour also involve emphasising the differences between her administration and Sir Keir Starmer’s national government.
One of Rachel Reeves’ first moves as chancellor was to withdraw the winter fuel payment from most pensioners, a decision since reversed.
“It did damage us. If you look at our older population, if you look at our housing stock, it was going to disproportionately affect Wales,” said Morgan.
Likewise, Morgan opposed the summer attempt to slash the disability bill: “Again, that would have had a disproportionate impact in Wales and it was only right for me to come out against it.”
The first minister is now pressing for Reeves to scrap the two-child benefit cap in the Budget.
Asked about this month’s U-turn on raising income tax, she appeared relieved. “A few months before an election it would not have been helpful,” she said.
Reform is attracting many older Welsh voters, including swaths of former Conservatives, who are concerned about migration levels. Plaid Cymru is meanwhile soaking up many younger, more left-wing, pro-migration voters.
Morgan is clear which side of the argument she is on, saying Wales was built on immigration.
“In the Rhondda, in about 1811 there was something like 500 people living there. A century later it was 150,000. We are talking about a nation built on waves of immigration,” she said. “Immigrants are making major contributions to our communities. In west Wales, where I live, 48 per cent of doctors and dentists were trained overseas.”
She said voters leaning towards Reform were “not racist” and were just disillusioned and seeking change: “But I do think there is a group within the party who are hell-bent on division.”
It was important that migrants always felt “welcome” in Wales, she added.
Asked about the national government’s efforts to get tough on migration, she replied: “What I won’t be doing . . . is chasing Reform down a path in order to win voters back. There is no way I’ll be making tough anti-immigration noises. That’s not who I am. It’s not the party we are in Wales.”
The loss of Caerphilly left Labour with 29 out of 60 Senedd members, and half are stepping down before May. Morgan insists this is because many are past retirement age rather than a sign of low morale.
Morgan insists she is still fighting for Labour to be the biggest party in Wales in May, although she does not rule out working with Plaid if necessary. “We’ve never had a majority . . . we’re well used to working with other parties,” she said.
Morgan will host a “Wales Investment Summit” on December 1 at the Celtic Manor convention centre near Newport.
She said the event would showcase Wales’s manufacturing prowess and its history of attracting inward investment, its nearness to London, its eight universities and its “good skills base . . . It’s going to be quite an extravaganza.”
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transcript
transcript
“I think we made a tremendous amount of progress. The goal was to… … to narrow the ones that were open items.”
By Shawn Paik
November 24, 2025
Synectics extends five-year framework agreement with Stagecoach
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