I was sent a link to a TikTok. I don’t have a TikTok account but I have been able to view this link so here’s a link to it. You can watch it yourself if you want to do so. It’s a video of a tweet on x.com. This one is the original tweet on x.com, and here is the link to the Terms and Conditions.
Essentially they’re trying to ensure they have rights to all works everyone puts on Twitter (sorry, X). Some of this might mean that they’ve got ads going and your work might be part of their ad campaign to bring people to X. But it looks as if you won’t be able to opt out of this company using your work to train AI.
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) to use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display, upload, download, and distribute such Content in any and all media or distribution methods now known or later developed, for any purpose. For clarity, these rights include, for example, curating, transforming, and translating.
https://x.com/en/tos
All companies have the right to change their Terms of Service. That’s not a problem. The issue is that this takes away a lot of rights and so many artists are voting with their feet and taking their work to bluesky or Cara. I’ve not checked, but I’ve heard that neither platform is well populated as yet.
I’ve had a few days to think about this and decide what to do. One of my thought processes was to figure out who I’d miss on x.com and ensure I can contact them in other ways. I’ve only come up with a few people and most of them I’m in contact with on other social media.
What will I miss by stepping away and deleting my x.com account? Not a lot. While I have a good number of followers I don’t have time to interact with many of them. This means they don’t interact with me and probably don’t read my tweets. I’m sure I don’t get many views on my blog from x.com.
The more I look at this the more confuzzled I am. Here is a tweet showing the old version of Your Rights and Grant of Rights in the Context. Most of the text is the same as the updated version which takes effect on the 15th November. The highlighted sentence is not in the 15th November version. It reads:
However, if you have chosen via our features to limit the distribution of your Content to a restricted community, we will respect that choice.
https://x.com/en/tos (old terms and conditions)
This means you can’t opt out of Grok. Until 15th November you can opt out of Grok and your content will not be used to train AI, and you will be able to block people so they can’t see your tweets. After the changes take place on the 15th November you can’t opt out of Grok, your content will be used to train AI and people you’ve blocked will be able to see your tweets. I believe people you’ve blocked will not be able to interact with you…but they will see your tweets. There’s a reason we block people and this change is problematic. This reminds me, I must share this with a friend, she’s got a couple of people blocked, it could be problematic for her.
Why is this such a big thing for me? Hard to say. There have been a lot of changes since ownership changed. I’ve watched them all and considered deleting my account for each and everyone of them. But there has to be the straw that breaks the camel’s back and this might be it for me.
I’m going to digress for a moment and take a paragraph down memory lane. When I was young we had a game called The Last Straw. Essentially, it was the back half and the front half of a camel. The two pieces were held together by a rubber band, and you had to fit a pannier in the middle where the two pieces met. There were three thicknesses of straws (just pieces of solid plastic) and we had to take turns to put them in the pannier’s gently. The straw that broke the camel’s back lost. Technically, it’s the person who placed that last straw lost. I always lost, but then I was several years younger than everyone else and my fine motor skills were not as advanced. Digression over, brains are funny things and mine makes connections where there are none.
Having put together this article and looked at all the comments etc I’m no wiser on what I will do. My immediate reaction when I was first told was to delete. But then I thought about all those people who have complained about something and then said they’re going to leave. Will I delete? If I do I won’t let the door hit me on the way out…promise.