X changed its terms of service to allow its AI to learn from everyone’s messages. Now users are outraged

When X unveiled its newest terms of service, which go into effect on November 15, users were quick to notice one change.

“By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through the Services, you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to make your Content available to the rest of the world,” states the terms of service, which include the right to review any such content, “including , for example, to use and train our machine learning and artificial intelligence models, generative or otherwise.”

Essentially, by continuing to use the platform, users will agree that X can use their data to train its AI models.

Using content to train AI has become a major challenge amid the technology boom. On X, artists and other creative people are concerned that their work is being used – and not just on X – to train computers that could one day completely replace human creators. Other X users say they are concerned that personal information in their tweets could be used in this way. Some users reported on the site that they had already started deleting their photos from their feeds.

And if users have any problems with those terms, they could end up in federal court, which is favored by conservative activists and is already presiding over two lawsuits involving Musk’s Company X.

According to the update, all disputes related to the terms will be brought in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas or the state courts of Tarrant County, Texas.

Tarrant County is more than 100 miles from X’s new headquarters outside of Austin, Texas.

X’s terms stated that any users who continued to use their products or services on or after November 15 would agree to the updated terms.

Data privacy changes

Grok, X’s AI chatbot, has already been embroiled in controversy, from spreading false information about the 2024 election to creating brutal, graphic fake images of famous politicians. Companies from Google to Microsoft have also come under fire for sometimes strange, out-of-the-box artificial intelligence tools.

Before the latest terms of service update, X users could opt out of data sharing by going to Settings, then Privacy & Security. Under the Data Sharing and Personalization heading, there is a Grok tab where users can uncheck the box to allow the platform to use their data to train AI.

But it’s unclear whether X’s new terms of service rule out that possibility. X can now license all content on the platform, including use in its machine learning and artificial intelligence models.

While such broad licensing with few restrictions is not unusual for a social media platform, Alex Fink, CEO and founder of Otherweb, an AI-powered news reader platform that fights misinformation, told CNN that what makes X unique is that that its new terms “remove any ambiguity” unlike other platforms that do not disclose their intentions.

X previously stated that posts from private accounts would not be used to train Grok. But the language in the new terms of service doesn’t differentiate between account types.

But only time will tell if you can opt out despite the new terms. Fink said a company’s legal terms quite often give it more leeway than its own menu items allow.

CNN’s Claire Duffy contributed to this report.

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