X’s new privacy policy states your data may be shared to train AI, but you would be able to opt out

X has now updated its privacy policy with indications that it can provide users’ data to third-party ‘collaborators’ in order to train generative AI models. The new policy will go into effect on November 15 this year. It seems it will allow outside companies to pay for license data from X to train their AI models. The updated policy indicates that if you decide to share your data, it may be disclosed to third parties. If you do not opt out of this sharing, the policy states that this data can be provided to third parties to train artificial intelligence models, whether generative or otherwise.

It’s not clear at this point how users can opt out of this. There doesn’t appear to be a control for opting out of data sharing for AI in the settings menu of the X app. It may be located in the “Data sharing and personalization” option in the “Privacy and safety” section, but for now, there are no indications about AI use of the data yet. I’m inclined to believe the setting will appear before the new policy enters into effect.

Licensing data to other companies can become a significant new revenue stream for X, which is reportedly currently experiencing waning interest from some of the major advertisers.

X has also updated its terms of service with stricter penalties for people who are caught “scraping” large numbers of tweets. Anyone viewing or accessing more than a million posts a day will be subject to a penalty of $15,000.

X owner Elon Musk has been vocal about his disdain for “scraping” (collecting data from the internet to incorporate in spreadsheets for whatever use) of data. The company temporarily blocked logged-out users from viewing tweets in an attempt to block scraping last year.

I personally dislike my data being used to train AI and would most likely opt out of sharing it when the setting becomes available.