Tumblr and Wordpress to Sell Users’ Data to Train AI Tools
Tumblr and Wordpress to Sell Users’ Data to Train AI Tools
Internal documents obtained by 404 Media show that Tumblr staff compiled users' data as part of a deal with Midjourney and OpenAI.
this could not be timed worse for Tumblr which is in huge hot water with its userbase already for its CEO breaking his sabbatical to ban a prominent trans user for allegedly threatening him (in a cartoonish manner), and then spending a week personally justifying it increasingly wildly across several platforms. the rumors had already been swirling that this would occur, but this just cements that they were correct
For any Tumblr users here, this has already rolled out completely unannounced and is opt-in by default. You need to manually opt out, which can only be done on the desktop website. Odds are good that your data is already being sold to Midjourney and used to train their models.
To do so, click on your blog on the sidebar, click on Blog Settings on the other sidebar on the right, scroll down to the Visibility section, and turn the "Prevent third-party sharing for [your blog]" toggle to ON, not off. If you have any sideblogs, you'll need to manually do this for each of them as well. It's per blog and not account-wide.
I was able to do it from the app and it was already on. I don't remember turning it on, so it might be default?
Edit: Just remembered that I did update the app today, so you might need to do that first.
it's also at blog settings > visibility on desktop
They made an announcement at some point after flipping the switch that noted that some people would be opted out by default based on their blog settings. I think if your blog is set to mature or has certain search parameters turned off already.
It wasn't on for me or several artists I sent messages to who hadn't even heard that this had happened, and the general discourse around it was pretty clearly upset about it not being opt out by default.
They must've updated the app; at the time I wrote that you couldn't do it through the app.
I've found out that even in Wordpress is opt-out
Not bad that you can opt out though, I don't think reddit will give people an option
If they hadn't given people the option, I don't think the site would be up today. I already saw one artist who wiped their account and left the site within a couple of hours of the announcement.
And they couldn't have picked a worse time to do this after the drama with the CEO banning a popular trans woman permanently off the site last week and threatening to sic the FBI on her for a "threat" of cartoon violence she made after the year-long harassment campaign she suffered had been ignored leading up to her being banned over a transition timeline picture of her face. The CEO then went on to spend hours going into trans women's dms to insist how he's not a transphobe after writing a post about how she had been banned for the "threat," not the picture, even though it had been known for a while by that point that she had been banned for that photo being "nsfw/sexual content," while he eventually started calling her "it." He then topped it off by chasing her and harassing her on Twitter, still insisting that her wishing cartoon violence was a tangible threat and posting the names of accounts she had had at various times on Tumblr. All while he was supposed to be on a 3-month vacation.
Between that and the rumors of this AI deal happening that popped up last week as well, people were already looking for alternative platforms. Allowing people to opt out is the least that they can do if they don't want to run off the users who keep the site running. I don't think many of them are happy that they even have to do that.
How does tumblr keep jumping into bad decisions lmao
I mean, they let themselves get bought by Yahoo and they banned erotic art. Its like they want to fail.
Then they got bought automattic, the owners of wordpress.com
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I guess they're talking about wordpress.com which is a commercial product, and not wordpress.org which is the foss software.
A whole load of features that should be in the (foss) wordpress core are in the proprietary SaaS plugin called jetpack which is run by wordpress.com. This includes invasive telemetry which they deliberately make hard to disable.
Class actions need to be made. Not just against AI, but Facebook, Google, Microsoft, banks... Basically anyone who collects data for profit while slipping it in as a secondary transaction in the terms and conditions, without providing any consideration.
The data brokerage industry is a $400bn industry, yet there are only 8bn people in the world. Even if we assume everyone is online and everyone's data is of equal value (both are far from true), that means an individual's data is worth at least $50 per year on the market. These are just people buying and selling data, and does not include companies that keep proprietary datasets and only sell advertising, or the value of peoples' written works online (which is likely of even greater value). Businesses are now selling off our copyrighted work for far less than its worth, all the while not paying the creator their rightful dues.
It simply isn't the case that data is traded for access to the website or service. That isn't how the transaction is presented. Front and centre, the services are offered free of charge (or sometimes, eg with Microsoft, you already pay for the service) and then a second transaction is buried in the fine print in obscure language. The entire purpose of this is deception, so the user does not understand the value they are giving up, and so as to deny them a fair opportunity to assess any supposed value exchange - because it isn't an exchange, you're giving it up for free, just like they give you access for free. It's two separate transactions deceptively run parallel.
You can't build a car without paying for the nuts and bolts. They steal the nuts and bolts we produce and then sell them on as their own products.
Edit: weird formatting issues from posting with low signal.
I agree completely, it is ridiculous and should be stopped immediately, but I don't see a way this problem can be fixed. EU is trying, for example after GDPR all these cookies became horrendously annoying. What you're suggesting will lead to clearer and possibly lengthier EULA or TOS documents but in essence we would still have to either agree with them or not use that service. While a lot of open source and self hosted options exist to replicate many of the services, but you can't rely yet on that for everything.
You can sure as hell double down on strict privacy settings and use a lot of privacy friendly options like librewolf, mull, private dns, nextcloud, matrix/jabber, VPNs, immich, better search engines, Open street maps, and OSes like arch and Graphene.
The EU is trying to legitimise it, which is completely the wrong take.
I think one of either two courses of action should be taken by lawmakers. Either:
- Data collection must be made open, such that anyone can access the data (but processing of data can be proprietary), or,
- Websites should pay people for the data they take.
Data has value, it is completely unacceptable that this value is taken without consideration.
There is no hidden transaction, you signed up for a service to:
- Upload your content so they send copies to whoever asks.
In exchange, they used to show you ads, and that was fair. Then, they started collecting your browsing data and selling that too... that is a second transaction, and got regulated. Now, they are selling a service of bundling together the content people asked them to share in the first place.
In your analogy, you asked them to send your nuts and bolts for free. In exchange, they advertised stuff to you. Then they started collecting the addresses of your clients... that was not fine. Now, they're throwing nuts and bolts from multiple people into a box and selling it as a "sampler kit", nuts and bolts you did ask them to send for free.
Did you not understand the value of your product? Maybe, but you asked them to do it anyway... and you're doing the same by posting content right here. 🤷
It is a hidden transaction. They try to argue it both ways, that it's an exchange of access for data, but then they hide the data in the fine print. When you buy something, the price isn't in the fine print, it's front and centre. When you buy insurance, they have to provide a "key facts page" where they detail what you're paying for in general terms. The key parts being exchanged are supposed to be at the forefront, not hidden in the terms and conditions.
People don't understand the value of their product because businesses hide that part in the terms and conditions to inhibit their ability to properly assess the value.
In your analogy, you asked them to send your nuts and bolts for free. In exchange, they advertised stuff to you. Then they started collecting the addresses of your clients... that was not fine. Now, they're throwing nuts and bolts from multiple people into a box and selling it as a "sampler kit", nuts and bolts you did ask them to send for free.
I didn't ask them, they advertised their service in bright lights saying it was free. Then, the fine print at the point of entry says they can pick the pockets of their guests.
You really are trying to advocate for the devil here, and I think if you take a step back you'll see that you're just parroting the same arguments they make. Such arguments have not been properly challenged yet, but if you stack them up against the core principles of contract law - through which all trade is conducted - they are clearly wrong.
I agree with some privacy protection laws, but come on. Everyone should know that if it is free, you are the product. How did anyone not see this coming? The terms are not in your favor.
Secondly, I have no issue with training ai on publicly available data, which includes anything put out online. At the same time, I am open to making laws that ai trained on said data must be publicly available at no charge as it seems not only fair, but reciprical.
It should be illegal for the company to own user-generated contents. They should at least pay the users.
They're giving you services in exchange for your contents.
Does nobody even think about TOS any more? You don't have to read any specific one, just realize the basic universal truth that no website is going to accept your contents without some kind of legal protection that allows them to use that content.
You pay for WordPress.com though. That’s crazy to offer a paid service and use that data in AI training.
No, and no, and no:
- If a user wants to assign ownership to a company, that's their right.
- These companies DO NOT ask for ownership, they only license the content (ownership carries responsibilities, they don't want those).
- Whether a user wants to get paid or not, is again up to them (see the various OpenSource and CC licenses).
Hard disagree.
- Companies don't give you a good chance to prevent them from eroding your control on the data further.
- Even if they technically disown the data, they're doing even worse. They are de-facto doing anything they want without taking responsibility
- Open source / CC licenses don't apply to whatever user data people are talking about here
So after banning adult content a few years ago, Tumblr decided to shoot itself in the other foot? It feels like the people in charge are actively trying to drive off the site's users.
Fun fact, it's been two different groups of people in charge! Yahoo! was responsible for removing adult content and then sold it to Automattic for pennies on the dollar. Automattic then went through several rounds of different poor moderation before the CEO himself stepped up to share GDPR violating information on Twitter. Now we're adding AI!
is there a real fediverse alternative to tumblr yet? i did hear that tumblr was working on activitypub support... but this shows the opposite intentions :<
That is not opposite, they just want to pull in data from the fediverse automatically so that they can sell it too.
We need some explicit licensing of our public fediverse data otherwise it will just be used to sell it back to us.
it's not federated or open, but cohost is a tumblr-alternative run by a group of queer devs who promise not to sell the company or your data. i don't blame you if you don't buy into it, but i do like the platform
edit: based on what /u/FaceDeer@kbin.social has mentioned about the TOS, as well as further elaboration i found in a thread about it (https://twitter.com/rahaeli/status/1588769277053739010), i don't think i can responsibly advocate for cohost, even as a closed/private alternative to tumblr
I wouldn't really trust that promise, frankly. I just checked their terms of service and it has the usual clause:
You must own all rights, title, and interest, including all intellectual property rights, in and to, the User Content you make available on the Services. ASSC requires licenses from you for that User Content to operate the Services. By posting User Content on the Services, you grant ASSC a royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, sublicensable, worldwide license to use, reproduce, distribute, perform, publicly display or prepare derivative works of your User Content.
Which isn't really surprising, it's standard boilerplate for a reason. They don't want to be caught in a situation where they can't function legally any more. They say they won't sell the company or your data, and they might even believe that right now, but who knows what the future might bring? They have the ability to do so if the circumstances arise.
i do know cohost, but id prefer fediversed and foss stuff ideally cuz like walled gardens n stuff >w<
@alyaza @kittykittycatboys Friendica, to some degree. It's pretty flexible, and you can have something like a basic blog. You do depend on the server admin to install the themes that you need, if they're not present. Once they're installed, you can switch between them at will.
There is even a Tumblr add-on if there's anyone you need to follow there.
Direct link for the lazy: Wafrn, a Tumblr-like Fediverse platform, and the code: frontend and backend. Seems VERY* early in development, so hopefully some of the masses fleeing Tumblr will be devs to contribute to it
Quick edit: Love that on the linked thread, the dev answered something from within their platform, and it was very much a Tumblr-style answer
!!! thank youuu :3 this looks interesting im gonna check this out!
I'm intrigued too, seems like a fairly simple platform to replicate
they're in alpha still
Think AI as the new tool to make money quickly after crypto, NFT, etc.
@alyaza Freaking hell, is there any more mainstream social media platform left that does not and does not plan to sell your data to an AI already?!? *sigh*
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@helenslunch Heh, I beg to differ about removing, I'd sure want it removed from time to time, don't know what they're thinking.
Just that when I originally signed up for these services, I did it not with the intent of feeding data to a piece of software that would fundamentally influence our decisions.
But hey, tech companies gotta tech company...
This sucks, but I'm also morbidly curious of how unhinged an AI trained on Tumblr posts would be.
First nazi otherkin AI.
Glad I have lemmy and sharkey in these trying times
At least it's not going to get sold here, or on Mastodon I guess, but it's not like the data couldn't get scraped by an unethical actor, right? 🤔
sincerely considering spinning up a sharkey instance as a tumblr alternative because fuck tumblr
Doesn't blahaj zone already run a sharkey instance?
Yes, it does
I don't know what Train AI Tools are, but I'd be ok with them if they had the temperament of Thomas the Train rather than Blain the Mono. How do we know which Train AI is buying our data?
Blaine is a pain, and that’s the truth.
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It stinks that what seems like the most critical reporting lands behind paywalls.