Facebook wants to scan users’ camera rolls for content

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Facebook is trying out a new approach to get people to share more content, with users in the U.K. now able to opt into a process that will recommend photos to share from users’ camera roll and provide suggestions for edits, collages, etc.

The new feature, which people will have to opt in to use, will enable Meta’s system to scan the camera roll on a users’ device to access their images. It will then recommend collections, like travel collages and recaps, that the user can post to the main feed or Stories.

Letting Meta scan all the images on a device may not be exactly what people want. But it sure is something.

As explained by Meta: “Many people capture life’s moments but rarely share them — whether it’s because they don’t think their photos or videos are ‘shareworthy,’ or because they simply don’t have time to create something special. With your permission, this opt-in feature analyses media in your camera roll to find standout moments — the memories that can get lost among screenshots, receipts and random snapshots.”

The tool will also recommend creative edits and generate videos from camera roll content in order to help users create stand-out content.

“You may see these recommendations appear in Stories, Feed and Memories (a Facebook bookmark) for you to review privately before deciding what to share,” Facebook said. “You can manage or disable the feature at any time in your Facebook camera roll settings.”

Yeah, it sounds a little bit creepy, and a little bit intrusive, and it’s unlikely many Facebook users will be overly keen to set Meta’s crawlers free in their camera roll, even with the assurance that they’ll always be asked to provide consent for any image sharing.

Facebook experimented with something similar in the U.S. last year, providing recommendations on content to share in-stream.

Maybe people will be open to it, though Meta does also have a questionable history with image scanning, particularly in relation to facial ID.

In 2021, Meta was essentially forced to shut down its facial recognition process on Facebook after its recommended tags for photos continually caused concerns.

Meta has been wading back into facial scanning of late, for ID verification as well as for its artificial intelligence glasses, in order to facilitate connection.

Adding this option to Facebook could be another way to incorporate face scanning, with Meta’s notes on the feature explaining: “To suggest ideas for you, we’ll analyze media in your camera roll and upload select media to our cloud on an ongoing basis, based on metadata like date, location, themes, objects and the presence of people.”

Again, it seems doubtful that this is something Facebook users will want, but Meta is looking for more ways to keep users sharing updates to its apps in order to keep its audience engaged and feed in more information to train its AI systems.

One of the key benefits for social media companies in AI development is that they have direct access to a never-ending, always updating stream of human-generated data, which they can then use to train their systems on language trends and interests.

That means that both Meta and X have an advantage over OpenAI, in that their data streams are always growing and evolving. However, both platforms have also seen declines in posting activity in recent years, as fewer people look to share publicly.

Indeed, research published by The Wall Street Journal in 2023 showed that 61% of U.S. adults have become more selective about what they post in recent times, with the main reasons being criticism, privacy concerns and “a general feeling that social media isn’t as fun as it used to be.”

Add in issues related to misinformation, toxicity and ad saturation, along with a push towards more entertainment-focused short-form video clips, and it definitely does feel like social media is no longer as personal, nor as social as it once was.

In order to counter this, Facebook has been exploring more ways to encourage sharing.

So can it get people sharing more updates to their Facebook feed again, despite these concerns?

Society is probably never going back to the glory days of posting every random update, and it’s not comforting to think about a process that automatically scans camera rolls.

But it’s another experiment in sharing, which Facebook is hoping will feed more content into the app.