Latest news with #RobertMercer
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Meta contractors say they can see Facebook users sharing private information with their AI chatbots
People love talking to AI—some, a bit too much. And according to contract workers for Meta, who review people's interactions with the company's chatbots to improve their artificial intelligence, people are a bit too willing to share personal, private information, including their real names, phone numbers, and email addresses, with Meta's AI. Business Insider spoke with four contract workers whom Meta hires through Alignerr and Scale AI–owned Outlier, two platforms that enlist human reviewers to help train AI, and the contractors noted that 'unredacted personal data was more common for the Meta projects they worked on' compared with similar projects for other clients in Silicon Valley. And according to those contractors, many users on Meta's various platforms such as Facebook and Instagram were sharing highly personal details. Users would talk to Meta's AI as if they were speaking with friends, or even romantic partners, sending selfies and even 'explicit photos.' To be clear, people getting too close to their AI chatbots is well-documented, and Meta's practice—using human contractors to assess the quality of AI-powered assistants for the sake of improving future interactions—is hardly new. Back in 2019, the Guardian reported how Apple contractors regularly heard extremely sensitive information from Siri users even though the company had 'no specific procedures to deal with sensitive recordings' at the time. Similarly, Bloomberg reported how Amazon had thousands of employees and contractors around the world manually reviewing and transcribing clips from Alexa users. Vice and Motherboard also reported on Microsoft's hired contractors recording and reviewing voice content, even though that meant contractors would often hear children's voices via accidental activation on their Xbox consoles. But Meta is a different story, particularly given its track record over the past decade when it comes to reliance on third-party contractors and the company's lapses in data governance. Meta's checkered record on user privacy In 2018, the New York Times and the Guardian reported on how Cambridge Analytica, a political consultancy group funded by Republican hedge-fund billionaire Robert Mercer, exploited Facebook to harvest data from tens of millions of users without their consent, and used that data to profile U.S. voters and target them with personalized political ads to help elect President Donald Trump in 2016. The breach stemmed from a personality quiz app that collected data—not just from participants, but also from their friends. It led to Facebook getting hit with a $5 billion fine from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), one of the largest privacy settlements in U.S. history. The Cambridge Analytica scandal exposed broader issues with Facebook's developer platform, which had allowed for vast data access, but had limited oversight. According to internal documents released by Frances Haugen, a whistleblower, in 2021, Meta's leadership often prioritized growth and engagement over privacy and safety concerns. Meta has also faced scrutiny over its use of contractors: In 2019, Bloomberg reported how Facebook paid contractors to transcribe users' audio chats without knowing how they were obtained in the first place. (Facebook, at the time, said the recordings only came from users who had opted into the transcription services, adding it had also 'paused' that practice.) Facebook has spent years trying to rehabilitate its image: It rebranded to Meta in October 2021, framing the name change as a forward-looking shift in focus to 'the metaverse' rather than as a response to controversies surrounding misinformation, privacy, and platform safety. But Meta's legacy in handling data casts a long shadow. And while using human reviewers to improve large language models (LLMs) is common industry practice at this point, the latest report about Meta's use of contractors, and the information contractors say they're able to see, does raise fresh questions around how data is handled by the parent company of the world's most popular social networks. In a statement to Fortune, a Meta spokesperson said the company has 'strict policies that govern personal data access for all employees and contractors.' 'While we work with contractors to help improve training data quality, we intentionally limit what personal information they see, and we have processes and guardrails in place instructing them how to handle any such information they may encounter,' the spokesperson said. 'For projects focused on AI personalization … contractors are permitted in the course of their work to access certain personal information in accordance with our publicly available privacy policies and AI terms. Regardless of the project, any unauthorized sharing or misuse of personal information is a violation of our data policies, and we will take appropriate action,' they added. This story was originally featured on Solve the daily Crossword
The Guardian
31-07-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Trump's tariffs to face crucial court test hours before they're scheduled to begin
Donald Trump's global tariffs face a crunch test in a federal appeals court on Thursday, just hours before the latest sweeping round of duties is set to kick in. The full 11-strong bench of the US court of appeals for the federal circuit in Washington DC will consider whether the president exceeded his authority in imposing 'reciprocal' tariffs on a large number of US trading partners. In May a three-judge panel of the court of international trade blocked the import duties on grounds that Trump's invocation of emergency powers under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) was unjustified. The appeals court has stayed that ruling pending the outcome of Thursday's hearing. Trump posted about the hearing on his Truth Social platform on Thursday, calling it 'America's big case'. He said: 'If our Country was not able to protect itself by using TARIFFS AGAINST TARIFFS, WE WOULD BE 'DEAD,' WITH NO CHANCE OF SURVIVAL OR SUCCESS.' The challenge to Trump's use of emergency powers has been brought by five small businesses acting alongside 12 Democratic-controlled states. They argue that the IEEPA was designed to address 'unusual and extraordinary' threats arising in national emergencies, and that the reason for the tariffs do not meet that standard. The small businesses are being represented by a libertarian public interest law firm, the Liberty Justice Center. The non-profit is supported by billionaire rightwing donors including Robert Mercer and Richard Uihlein, who, paradoxically, have also been major backers of Trump's presidential campaigns.
The Guardian
29-05-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Trump tariffs derailed by law firm that received money from his richest backers
Donald Trump's tariff policy was derailed by a libertarian public interest law firm that has received money from some of his richest backers. The Liberty Justice Center filed a lawsuit against the US president's 'reciprocal' tariffs on behalf of five small businesses, which it said were harmed by the policy. The center, based in Austin, Texas, describes itself as a Libertarian non-profit litigation firm 'that seeks to protect economic liberty, private property rights, free speech, and other fundamental rights'. Previous backers of the firm include billionaires Robert Mercer and Richard Uihlein, who were also financial backers of Trump's presidential campaigns. Mercer, a hedge fund manager, was a key backer of Breitbart News and Cambridge Analytica, pouring millions into both companies. He personally directed Cambridge Analytica to focus on the Leave campaign during the UK's Brexit referendum in 2016 that led to the UK leaving the European Union. For its lawsuit against Trump's tariffs, the Liberty Justice Center gathered five small businesses, including a wine company and a fish gear and apparel retailer, and argued that Trump overreached his executive authority and needed Congress's approval to pass such broad tariffs. The other group who sued the Trump administration over its tariffs was a coalition of 12 Democratic state attorney generals who argued that Trump improperly used a trade law, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), when enacting his tariffs. In such a polarized time in US history, it may feel odd to see a decision celebrated by liberal and conservatives. But Trump's tariffs have proven controversial to members of both parties, particularly after Wall Street seemed to be put on edge by the president's trade war. The US stock market dipped down at least 5% after Trump announced the harshest of his tariff policies. Recovery was quick after Trump paused many of his harshest tariffs until the end of the summer. Sign up to This Week in Trumpland A deep dive into the policies, controversies and oddities surrounding the Trump administration after newsletter promotion Stocks started to rally on Thursday morning after the panel's ruling. The judges said that the law Trump cited when enacting his tariffs, the IEEPA does not 'delegate an unbounded tariff authority onto the president'. While the ruling does not impact specific tariffs on industries such as aluminum and steel, it prevents the White House from carrying out broad retaliatory tariffs and its 10% baseline 'reciprocal' tariff. The White House is appealing the ruling, which means the case could go up to the US supreme court, should the high court decide to take on the case. Members of both groups who sued the Trump administration celebrated the ruling. Jeffrey Schwab, senior counsel for the Liberty Justice Center, said in a statement that it 'affirms that the president must act within the bounds of the law, and it protects American businesses and consumers from the destabilizing effects of volatile, unilaterally imposed tariffs'. Oregon's Democratic attorney general Dan Rayfield, who helped the states' lawsuit, said that it 'reaffirms that our laws matter'. In a statement, Victor Schwartz, founder of VOS Selections, a wine company that was represented by the Liberty Justice Center in the suit, said that the ruling is a 'win' for his business. 'This is a win for my small business along with small businesses across America – and the world for that matter,' he said. 'We are aware of the appeal already filed and we firmly believe in our lawsuit and will see it all the way through the United States Supreme Court.'
