Automattic in Controversy Over Selling User Content to AI Companies Without Consent
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Automattic (parent of WordPress & Tumblr) is in talks to sell user content to AI companies like MidJourney & OpenAI for training purposes.
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There is conflict within Automattic as some private content was scraped without permission. Content like old Apple Music ads was also included.
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A new opt-out setting will let users decide if they want their content used to train AI systems. This will be introduced as soon as Wednesday.
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Automattic is trying to frame this as giving users more control, but their statement comes across as defensive.
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They claim their partnerships will respect opt-out settings, but admit no law requires crawlers to follow user preferences on scraping content.