10-year challenge: Facebook responds to suggestions meme was created to train its algorithms
Critics have suggested the old photos could be a goldmine for Facebook's data-harvesting operations
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.The 10-year challenge is just “fun” and not being used for any other ends, Facebook has said amid suggestions it could be harvesting data from people’s old photos.
The challenge has spread across Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and recent days, encouraging people to post photos of themselves now alongside ones from 2009. Huge number of images have been posted, including by some of the world’s biggest celebrities.
But as the popularity has grown, so have warnings that images posted onto Facebook and Instagram can be mined for any potential data that might be useful to the companies.
Some even suggested that the meme could have been intentionally created by Facebook, as a way of helping to generate photographs to train an AI that would be able to guess how people age.
“Let’s say you wanted to train a facial recognition algorithm on aging,” tweeted Wired’s editor Nicholas Thompson, alongside a link to a piece on his website exploring the possibilities for data collection. “What would do? Maybe start a meme like #10yearchallenge.”
The article Mr Thompson linked to did not say explicitly that Facebook had created the meme, though it suggested that it may have. It ended with a suggestion that people “treat our own data with respect”, and that we should ask the same of the companies who store it.
Mr Thompson’s post as well as the much longer Wired article were just one of a number of people to raise concerns about the challenge, and the data that people might accidentally be giving over to companies like Facebook.
But it responded to say that it had nothing to do with the creation of the challenge.
“The 10 year challenge is a user-generated meme that started on its own, without our involvement. It’s evidence of the fun people have on Facebook, and that’s it.”
Facebook’s denial was met with a flood of irritated posts, many from users referencing the company’s previous, high-profile data mining scandals and breaches.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments