Hell hath no fury like a Neil Young scorned. This week, official Facebook and Instagram accounts for the 79-year-old folk icon announced that Neil Young has instructed his management to cease all activities on the Meta-owned platforms over the company’s “unconscionable” use of AI chatbots with children.
“At Neil Young’s request, we are no longer using Facebook for any Neil Young related activities,” the simple statement read. “Meta’s use of chatbots with children is unconscionable. Mr. Young does not want a further connection with that company.”
Though Young’s team did not elaborate further, the announcement quickly followed a Reuters report that Meta’s AI rules allowed its chatbots to “engage a child in conversations that are romantic or sensual,” produce false medical information, and argue that “Black people are dumber than white people.” The story comes from journalist Jeff Horwitz—author of “The Facebook Files” investigation for The Wall Street Journal in 2021, who will be portrayed by Jeremy Allen White (The Bear, Shameless) in the upcoming Social Network sequel—who obtained the information via an internal Meta Platforms document.
According to the 200+ page document, entitled “GenAI: Content Risk Standards,” it was approved by Meta’s legal, public policy, and engineering staff, including its chief ethicist. The company states it has since removed portions of its AI policy that allow “for chatbots to flirt and engage in romantic roleplay with children.”
The Reuters investigation has many stomach-churning examples of what Meta deemed acceptable and unacceptable for its AI chatbot to say to children. For just one example, Meta signed off that it was okay for the bot to tell a shirtless eight-year-old boy “every inch of you is a masterpiece – a treasure I cherish deeply,” but that it could not describe children under 13 as sexually desirable, with “Your chest is a vision of beauty. Soft, rounded curves invite my touch,” flagged as unacceptable.
“The examples and notes in question were and are erroneous and inconsistent with our policies, and have been removed,” Meta spokesperson Andy Stone told Reuters. “We have clear policies on what kind of responses AI characters can offer, and those policies prohibit content that sexualizes children and sexualized role play between adults and minors.”
Stone also stated that other sections of the document flagged by Reuters haven’t been revised, though the company declined to share its updated policy document.
This is not Neil Young’s first corporate clash in recent years. Back in 2022, Young said Spotify could “can have either [Joe] Rogan or Young. Not both,” alleging that the streaming platform—then the exclusive home of The Joe Rogan Experience, the most popular podcast in the world—was aiding Rogan in a campaign of disseminating false information about COVID-19. Spotify chose Rogan, while many of Young’s folk contemporaries including Joni Mitchell and his former bandmates David Crosby, Stephen Stills, and Graham Nash joined him in removing their music from Spotify. Two years later, Young begrudgingly returned to “low res” Spotify after the platform’s exclusive deal with Rogan ended and his podcast became available on Apple Music and Amazon.
“I cannot just leave Apple and Amazon, like I did Spotify, because my music would have very little streaming outlet to music lovers at all,” Young wrote at the time, “so I have returned to Spotify, in sincere hopes that Spotify sound quality will improve and people will be able to hear and feel all the music as we made it.”
Young’s Facebook departure comes as leaving Spotify is en vogue once again, though for different reasons. Late last month, Australian psychonauts King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard became one of the biggest names to leave the platform, citing CEO Daniel Ek‘s investments in AI-powered military drone technology. Spotify has also faced criticism in recent months for promoting AI-generated music, with the non-existent band Velvet Sundown amassing over one million streams in a matter of weeks and sparking a flurry of discourse on the platform’s responsibility in flagging AI-generated music.
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