X May Use Your Data for AI Training, Even If You Opt Out

Ever since election night on November 5, I’ve noticed a massive exodus of my X mutuals from the site. That’s not too surprising—owner Elon Musk has made his political affiliations clear, and those who don’t want to support him financially are understandably bouncing. I myself have only stuck around because of work, although I’ve stopped posting as frequently. However, a new update to the X terms of service has even my finger hovering over the deactivate account button (even if there’s technically a better way to leave Twitter behind).

Starting today, X is now allowed to start feeding all your posts to its AI models, possibly even if you opt. The depth of the situation isn’t quite clear, but regardless of what’s actually happening behind the scenes, the language isn’t encouraging.

Freshly added to the terms’ “Your Rights and Grant of Rights in the Content” subheading is a new mention of X’s AI, 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 you provide and to otherwise provide, promote, and improve the Services, including...for use with and training of our machine learning and artificial intelligence models, whether generative or another type."

I’ve highlighted the new text in bold. While the non-exclusive, royalty-free license itself is rather typical for a social media site, the updated terms now essentially mean that, by continuing to use the site, you’re agreeing for X to train AI off of your posts.

That alone has users concerned, but what has them confused is that X technically has already been openly training its AI on user posts, with the caveat that it’s had a clear opt-out toggle. At time of writing, that 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 should X choose to ignore a user’s opt-out status.

Unfortunately, it’s unlikely there’s going to be a clear answer until someone challenges the AI scraping in court, which has its own difficulties. Any lawsuits over Twitter’s terms, according to the update, would be overseen by either “the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas or state courts located in Tarrant County, Texas,” both of which are known for conservative judges. Given Musk’s political leanings, as well as X’s headquarter location within the state, it’s possible the court could favor the company.

X did not immediately respond to Lifehacker’s request for clarification. Without clear communication, whether you trust X’s AI not to scrape your data now falls on the honor system. If that’s a bit shaky for you, I understand—here’s a guide on how to migrate your account to Bluesky, a popular Twitter alternative that’s seen a massive boost in users amid Twitter’s current exodus.

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