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
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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.
Ah, gotcha. Thanks for the extra info!
I've found out that even in Wordpress is opt-out
I hadn't logged in a while and it was on, weird
I mean, I'll take that as a good point in Tumblr's favor.
Not bad that you can opt out though, I don't think reddit will give people an option
Wouldn't that be illegal in Europe with GDPR and other consumer protection laws?
I guess their TOS will cover them?
Pretty much, yes. The GDPR allows users to access, modify, and delete their own content. The TOS license all user content to Reddit. There might be a conflict if they try to sell previously licensed content that a user has blanked or requested to be removed, not sure how that one would work out, but any content still on Reddit is fair game.
I'm guessing Tumblr and WordPress have similar licensing clauses ok their TOS.
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.