X Can Use Your Data to Train AI Even If You Refuse
Since election night on November 5th, I have noticed a mass exodus of my X friends from the site. This is not surprising: owner Elon Musk has made his political affiliation clear , and those who do not want to support him financially are understandably backing down. I myself only stayed here for work, although I stopped posting as often. However, the new X terms of service update even had my finger hovering over the account deactivation button (even though there is technically a better way to leave Twitter behind).
Starting today, X is now allowed to pass all your messages to its AI models, possibly even if you want it to. The depth of the situation is not entirely clear, but regardless of what is actually happening behind the scenes, the language is not reassuring.
A new reference to Artificial Intelligence X has recently been added to the “Your Rights and Content Grant” sub-heading of the terms and conditions, which reads:
“By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through the Services, you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license (with the right to sublicense) [and] you agree that this license includes the right for us to (i) analyze text and other information that you provide, and otherwise provide, promote and improve the Services, including… to use and train our machine learning and artificial intelligence models, both generative and other types .”
I have highlighted the new text in bold. While the non-exclusive free license itself is fairly typical for a social networking site , the updated terms now essentially mean that by continuing to use the site, you are agreeing to let X train the AI based on your posts.
This alone worries users , but what confuses them is that X technically already openly trains its AI on user posts, with the caveat that it has a clear opt-out switch . At the time of writing this toggle still shows up for me on both mobile and desktop, but with the new language it’s unclear if it actually does anything now or if the new terms of service will take precedence if X decides to ignore the opt-out status .
Unfortunately, it’s unlikely that a clear answer will be given unless someone challenges AI scraping in court, which has its own challenges. According to the update, any legal action over Twitter’s terms would be overseen by either the “U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas or the state courts located in Tarrant County, Texas,” both of which are known for conservative judges . Given Musk’s political leanings, as well as the location of X’s headquarters in the state, it is possible that the court could favor the company.
X did not immediately respond to Lifehacker’s request for clarification. Without a clear connection, whether you trust AI X not to scrape your data will now depend on the honor system. If you’re a little confused by this, I understand—here’s a guide on how to move your account to Bluesky , a popular Twitter alternative that has seen its user base skyrocket amid Twitter’s current exodus.