Recently, the Amazon-owned Twitch made headlines for announcing that it would allow users to opt out of having their streams, VODs, and chats fed into an AI training machine. This, understandably, made a lot of people upset. But it turns out Twitch might be one of the more moderate social media sites on this front. Most social media apps are training some kind of AI on your data, and few make it as easy as a single toggle to opt out at all.
Almost every social media site out there makes it extremely hard to know exactly how your data is used these days. Training generative AI models like Google’s Gemini is often lumped in with more mundane (but still machine learning-powered) features like YouTube’s algorithm. Sifting through privacy policies to even find out whether a social app contributes to the kind of generative AI that has proven so controversial is an undertaking that would deter most lawyers.
Even if you find out how your data is being used, many sites simply don’t offer you the ability to opt out. Of all the platforms reviewed here, not a single one that trains AI offers an opt-in model. Put simply, if you logged on today, tech companies took that as your consent to be part of their training data. If there is a way to opt out of even some AI training from a social media site, you’ll find instructions in the list below, sorted in alphabetical order.
Bluesky
What training do they do? Officially, Bluesky doesn’t train any AI models—although it does employ AI in its development and builds AI features. However, since Bluesky uses the decentralized AT Protocol, your posts (and a lot of other data, like who you block) are public. So it’s possible for just about anyone to scrape your posts and use them to train AI.
What can you do to stop it? You don’t need to do anything; Bluesky itself doesn’t use your posts to train AI. However, if you’re worried about a third party scraping your data, you may want to be cautious about what you post.
What training do they do? It might be easier to ask what data Facebook doesn’t use for training AI. After spending enormous sums on a metaverse that never materialized, Facebook’s parent company Meta is pivoting to AI and rushing to catch up to companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google. The company’s policy on training AI with your data is extremely broad, encompassing not only your posts, photos, and interactions on Facebook, but also data collected from third-party brokers and “information that is available on the internet.” Facebook says it stops just short of training AI on private messages with friends or family, “unless you or someone in the chat chooses to share those messages with our AIs.”
What can you do to stop it? Unfortunately, unless you’re in the EU, Facebook makes it impossible to opt out of AI training with your data. The company carves out a narrow exception — where required by law — for the specific scenario where you find personally identifying information about you included in a response from one of its AI tools. If that happens, you can submit a complaint, which Facebook will then review to decide whether it will take any action.
Keep in mind that Meta considers interacting with Facebook’s AI tools as consent to train future AI models on those interactions. So even trying to determine whether your personal information has been collected could expose you further. In general, deleting your Facebook account may be the most effective option — though even that won’t necessarily stop Facebook from training AI on data it has already collected.
What training do they do? Instagram is owned by Meta, so many of its policies mirror those described for Facebook above. Instagram has also faced specific controversies of its own, such as the Muse feature, which briefly allowed users to create AI-generated images of other users without their consent before being removed following widespread backlash.
What can you do to stop it? Similar to Facebook, you can file an objection if you find your private information included in AI responses. If you’re in the EU, you can opt out of AI training entirely. Otherwise, your main options are to delete your Instagram account or make it private.
What training do they do? LinkedIn is owned by Microsoft, which has made a significant commitment to AI. According to LinkedIn’s official policy, users’ posts, comments, profile data, resumes, and group activity, among other data types, can all be used to train AI models. It should also be noted that LinkedIn was sued last year over allegations that it was training AI on private direct messages — an allegation LinkedIn denies.
What can you do to stop it? LinkedIn at least allows you to revoke your permission. On the site, navigate to Settings and Privacy > Data Privacy > How LinkedIn uses your data > Data for Generative AI Improvement. There you’ll find a toggle labeled “Use my data for training content creation AI models” that is on by default — switch it off. Note that this only applies to data collected on LinkedIn, not the broader Microsoft ecosystem.
What training do they do? Reddit doesn’t train its own AI models, but it does have deals with OpenAI and Google to train their models on its data. Reddit has at least considered ending those deals, in part because the company has seen a drop in traffic as AI-powered search reduces referral visits. However, AI models were training on Reddit data long before these formal deals were in place, so ending an official partnership may not prevent AI companies from continuing to scrape publicly available posts.
What can you do to stop it? Short of deleting your Reddit account and never posting on the site, there is currently nothing you can do. Reddit has no tool to opt out of AI training, and even if it did, AI companies have been scraping publicly available posts for years regardless of platform policies.
Snapchat
What training do they do? Like most social media apps, Snapchat uses your public images, video, and audio to train its generative AI models. The company says it uses this data to develop features like AI Snaps and AI Lenses. Snapchat also had a deal to integrate Perplexity’s AI tools into its search, although that deal was ended before a broad rollout, so it’s unclear whether any user data was ever shared with or used to train Perplexity’s models.
What can you do to stop it? Unlike most social media apps, Snapchat’s opt-out is relatively straightforward, if a little buried. Inside the app, open Settings and under Privacy Controls, tap Generative AI Settings. Disable the toggle labeled “Allow Use of Public Content.” As always, third parties can still scrape publicly available data, though Snapchat’s design makes that somewhat more difficult. If you want to be extra cautious, avoid leaving any persistent public content on your profile.
Threads
What training do they do? Threads is owned by Meta, so it shares the same data training policies as Facebook. Unless required by law, publicly available data on Threads will be used to train AI regardless of your consent, and there is no opt-out available for users outside the EU.
Given how broadly these policies are written and how few meaningful opt-out options exist, the most reliable way to limit your exposure is to reduce what you share publicly — or to step back from platforms that offer no meaningful controls at all.
