X Shares Your Data to Train Third-Party AI
When it was known as Twitter, the social media app had its share of problems, but I’m willing to bet that the percentage of users who consider X to be a thriving and functioning site is significantly small in comparison. The changes implemented under the leadership of CEO Elon Musk have resulted in the platform becoming less secure, more toxic and, frankly, disrespectful of the privacy of its users.
You don’t have to look far to figure out why X isn’t paying attention to your data: Last year, we discovered that Circles, a feature specifically designed for messaging with a private circle of followers, was simply allowing unauthorized users to see your data. posts for some reason . Then, back in July, X offered users the option to block the company’s artificial intelligence platform Grok from using their data for training —suggesting that up to this point the company may have been collecting user data without permission.
Now it appears that X’s user data is being used to train AI again, but this time for unnamed third parties – again, without prior consent.
It looks like X is selling your user data for third party AI training.
As reported by TechCrunch , X updated its Privacy Policy on Wednesday to indicate that the company will share user data with third-party collaborators for AI training purposes. This is a default situation, not an opt-in one: if you don’t like the sound of your messages and actions being used to train the world’s mysterious AI systems, you need to say so decisively—assuming you even know it’s an option first of all.
While the rule change does not say whether X benefits financially from working with third parties, it seems likely. After all, other companies have sold user data to other companies to train AI models, including Reddit and Discord , each of which, like X, have a huge amount of user-generated content to offer to top buyers.
The specific portion of the Privacy Policy that mentions this action is as follows:
“ Outsiders. Depending on your settings or if you choose to share your information, we may transfer or disclose your information to third parties. Unless you opt out, in some cases recipients of the information may use it for their own independent purposes in addition to the purposes set forth in Privacy Policy X, including, for example, training their artificial intelligence models, generative or otherwise. »
How to Opt Out of AI Data Sharing on X
To opt out of data sharing, you’ll need to change your settings to X. Go to Privacy & Security , then under Data Sharing & Personalization , click Sharing Data with Business Partners . Disable this feature to opt out.
What’s potentially most egregious about this situation to me, besides selling X amount of user data, is that it’s not at all obvious how to turn it off. Even when you go to the page for this setting, it says the following:
“X always shares information with business partners to launch and improve its products. When enabled, this feature allows X to share additional information with these partners to help support X’s business, including making X’s marketing activities more relevant on other sites and apps. for you. Find out more .”
There is no explicit mention of selling your data for AI training. In fact, if you click on the “Read More” link, the page it leads to doesn’t mention anything about AI training either. TechCrunch states that X will update these descriptions on November 15th, when they officially update their Privacy Policy. Of course, this is speculation, so we’ll have to wait and see.
X doesn’t care about you
Either way, X clearly doesn’t want much of its user base to opt out of sharing data, likely because it’s in their financial interests to keep them in the dark. X is struggling financially , so the company needs to find ways to make money. Advertisers are fleeing , and most people don’t want to pay for something they can get for free, so sure, let’s sell your data instead.
TechCrunch also reports that the new Privacy Policy removes language specifying the length of time a company will keep your data, in favor of language that says they will keep it for essentially as long as your account is active, and as long as they see fit. . Additionally, you can’t expect the data you deleted from X to disappear forever, since the policy states that “public content may exist somewhere else even after it’s deleted from X.” While the company uses examples such as search engines and third parties storing your data, you can imagine that this also extends to those third parties that train their AI models using your posts.
If you’ve finally had enough, consider switching to one of the many X alternatives. (And if you choose Bluesky, there’s a good way to find all your X subscribers there .)