In order to allow its AI to train on everyone’s posts, X modified its terms of service. Users are now furious.

X, the social media giant, announced the latest terms of service to take effect on November 15th, giving users a worldwide, nonexclusive, royalty-free license to use their contents for machine learning and artificial intelligence models.

It will be inclusive of the right to analyze any content, including those from private accounts. The move has engendered concern among users who do not want their work used to train computers that may someday replace human creators. A few have started deleting photographs of themselves from their feeds.

Users who disagree risk finding themselves in a federal courtroom that conservative activists have come to love. The update adds that disputes arising from the terms could also be taken to the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas or state courts in Tarrant County, Texas. Users who continue using their products or services after November 15 will be agreeing to the updated terms.

The change to data privacy has been controversial, and X’s new AI chatbot has not been without controversy. Before the change in settings, one could opt out of sharing data by going into “settings,” then “privacy and safety.” Under the header titled “data sharing and personalization,” there is a tab labeled “Grok” in which a user can uncheck the box that allows the platform to use one’s data for AI training.

Alex Fink, CEO and founder of Otherweb, an AI-based news-reading platform, said the new terms from X “remove any ambiguity” in contrast to other platforms that don’t spell out their intention. Though the language in the new terms does not differentiate account types, it remains to be seen whether users would still be able to opt out despite the new terms.

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