If you are an X user, then you may have seen a pop-up message, informing you of a change to its Terms of Service. This change refers to an update that enables the sharing of user data with third-party “collaborators” for the purpose of training AI models. This update is set to be effective from November 15.
The development itself is unsurprising – user data is highly coveted by AI firms because it can be used to train AI models, allowing them to learn from the data and refine their decision-making processes, thus making more accurate and coherent decisions. This also makes responses and decisions more “human-like,” which can be useful while creating AI-powered chatbots like ChatGPT and Gemini. A lot of AI and machine learning models rely heavily on data
Under the updated terms of X’s privacy policy, the social media platform is free to share user data unless the users specifically choose to opt-out of it. This data may then be used for independent purposes – including the training of AI models – if users do not opt out. The policy states, “Third-party collaborators. Depending on your settings, or if you decide to share your data, we may share or disclose your information with third parties. If you do not opt out, in some instances the recipients of the information may use it for their own independent purposes in addition to those stated in X’s Privacy Policy, including, for example, to train their artificial intelligence models, whether generative or otherwise.”
This development suggests that the Elon Musk-owned X is taking a page out of Reddit’s book, as well as following the footsteps of FT, Le Monde and others in licensing data to external parties like AI companies. If X does begin to license user data, then it could create and tap into a significant new revenue stream. this will be beneficial for the social media company, especially when one considers its recent struggles with traditional advertising revenues.
While X allows the option of opting out of this, the specifics remain unclear – X’s policy directs users to the Settings menu without any clear indication of where they can disable data sharing for AI training purposes. If you have gone to the “Privacy and safety” section in Settings, you will find that you can turn on or off data-sharing with Grok (the AI chatbot developed by xAI, another of Musk’s firms) and with other “business partners.”
In addition to the update to its privacy policy, the erstwhile Twitter has also revised its terms of service to impose harsher penalties on entities that engage in “scraping” large volumes of tweets. The updated terms include a “liquidated damages” clause, which specifies that organizations accessing over one million posts in a single day will incur a penalty of $15,000 per million posts accessed.
