A new update announced by X to its Terms and Conditions allows the site to use user content to train artificial intelligence.
The new policy, alongside other recent tweaks by CEO Elon Musk, is driving a surge in new sign-ups for X alternatives.
“You agree that this license includes the right for us to (i) analyze text and other information you provide and to otherwise provide, promote, and improve the Services, including, for example, for use with and training of our machine learning and artificial intelligence models, whether generative or another type,” X's new terms, which go into effect on Nov. 15 this year, read.
The terms also clarify that, while you still own the content you post, X can share it with other companies, organizations, or individuals as it sees fit—and that you don’t get anything in return.
Instead, it says that using the service is “sufficient compensation” for the rights to your content.
The site’s current policy allows you to opt out of having your posts fed into Grok, X’s AI chatbot.
X didn’t immediately respond to a question asking whether users would be able to opt-out under the new terms and conditions.
Under the new terms, users can also be fined $15,000 if they access more than 1,000,000 posts in a 24-hour period. Because it’s unrealistic for anything other than a bot account to view that much in a single day, the new policy is fueling speculation that beyond trying to get rid of bots, X might be getting ready to sell data to other companies training their own generative AI.
Over on Reddit, users pointed out that similar terms of service changes came ahead of Reddit inking a deal with Google back in February.
“We did notice that and kind of quickly figured out which AI it was being trained, on one day a protest was done where everyone would only reply to posts with ‘Bazingga’ and Gemini kind of went a little loopy from that,” posted u/ChrisofCL24 in r/privacy.
Back on X, the new Terms and Conditions went particularly viral with artists, who discussed the best ways to avoid having their artwork gobbled up by the maw of generative AI.
“All the poor artists and creators on Twitter. Prior to today, you could opt out of having your posts used for AI / generative training. The new amended terms and conditions have made it impossible to do so,” posted @shiinareii, lamenting how difficult it would be to move over to another platform.
Some artists suggested that making a move was the best way to protect their art from becoming training data, but that they should maintain a presence on X to direct people to their Bluesky profiles.
Launched as an alternative to X and originally led by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, Bluesky has seen “all-time highs” thanks in part to recent moves by Musk.
After Musk got X banned in Brazil for refusing to comply with local laws on content moderation, Bluesky had an influx of new users.
And after the latest policy updates, which include the block feature changing, Bluesky announced that 100,000 new users had joined the site.
Despite the headwinds, not everybody is jumping ship.
“Considering most social media sites sell your data, you don't have a choice, really,” posted u/Lammahamma on r/privacy.
“Everyone got over it and carried on using it. Lol,” pointed out u/KoolKat5000 in a comment chain talking about Reddit’s short-lived protest against AI being trained on the site.
“Same will happen to X…” replied u/DryHumpWetPants.
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