Neil Young is staging yet another boycott of a major online platform.
The rocker declared that he would no longer be using Facebook, after a Reuters report revealed that Meta permitted its chatbot to “engage a child in conversations that are romantic or sensual.” Reps for Young posted to his official Facebook page, “At Neil Young’s request, we are no longer using Facebook for any Neil Young related activities. Meta’s use of chatbots with children is unconscionable. Mr. Young does not want a further connection with FACEBOOK.”
The Reuters report, written by Jeff Horwitz—the journalist behind the Wall Street Journal’s 2021 “Facebook Files” investigation who will reportedly be played by Jeremy Allen White in the upcoming Social Network sequel—also says that Meta permits its chatbot to “generate false medical information and help users argue that Black people are dumber than white people,” according to an internal Meta Platforms document.
Since receiving questions about the unsavory AI permissions from Reuters, Meta told the site that it would remove the portions that allowed for the bot to engage in “romantic” role-play with children. “The examples and notes in question were and are erroneous and inconsistent with our policies, and have been removed,” a Meta spokesperson told the outlet. Young was not satisfied, however.
He offered no statement on his “Neil Young Archives” account on Instagram, which Meta also owns.
It’s not the first time the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer has staged a protest. In 2022, he wanted his music removed from Spotify to protest the company’s platforming of Joe Rogan’s vaccine misinformation. “I want you to let Spotify know immediately TODAY that I want all my music off their platform. They can have Rogan or Young. Not both,” he wrote at the time, also declaring he “could not continue to support Spotify’s life threatening misinformation to the music loving public.”
Spotify acquiesced and removed his music days later. Young reneged in 2024, however, explaining that he would be returning his music to Spotify because “music services Apple and Amazon started serving the same disinformation podcast features I had opposed at SPOTIFY,” he wrote on his website.
As such, some fans expressed skepticism about his Facebook boycott. “So he’ll [be] back in a year when he realizes no one cares like with Spotify?” wrote one underneath Young’s post declaring he’d never use Facebook again. Wrote another, “just like he stopped using Spotify.”
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