Bluesky Pledges Not to Train AI on User Content, Contrasting with X's Policy

Bluesky Says It Will Not Train AI on User Posts on the Platform

The platform is said to have crossed 17 million registered users Bluesky recently announced that it does not train its generative artificial intelligence (AI) models on user data. The social media platform also highlighted the areas where it uses AI tools and claimed that none of the models have been trained on the public and private posts made by users. The statement was released after several creators and users raised concerns about the platform's privacy policy around AI. Notably, Bluesky recently crossed the 17 million registered users mark after one million users joined the platform in a single day last week. In a post on the platform, Bluesky announced its stance on AI and user data. "We do not use any of your content to train generative AI, and have no intention of doing so," the post said, adding that it was issued after several artists and creators on the platform raised concerns over the platform's AI policy. In a separate post, Bluesky also listed the areas where it uses generative AI tools. The company uses AI internally to assist in content moderation system, which is a common practice for social media platforms. Additionally, it also uses AI in its Discover algorithmic feed, through which the platform suggests posts to users based on their activity on the platform. The Verge reported that while the company might not be using user data to train AI models, third-party firms can still crawl the platform and scrape the data to train their models. Company spokesperson Emily Liu told the publication that Bluesky's robots.txt files do not stop outside companies from crawling its website for data. However, the spokesperson highlighted that the issue is currently a topic of discussion within the team and Bluesky is trying to figure out how to ensure that outside organisations respect user consent on the platform. Notably, on Sunday, Bluesky revealed that one million new users joined the social media platform in a single day. It also highlighted that the platform crossed the milestone of 17 million registered users.

Bluesky Promises Not to Use Your Content to Train Generative AI

With X formally harnessing public posts to train its AI models, rival Bluesky is going in the opposite direction by rejecting the controversial business practice. "We do not use any of your content to train generative AI, and have no intention of doing so," Bluesky told users on Friday. Bluesky made the statement on the same day X began enforcing new rules to let the company tap user posts to train AI models. X owner Elon Musk first talked about doing so over a year ago, which sparked some users, particularly artists, to bail from the social media platform. The main worry is that future AI models from X will plagiarize user content without any recourse or compensation for creators. Mark Zuckerberg's Meta, which runs X rival Threads, also uses public posts to train its AI programs. That prompted some artists and creators on Bluesky to ask about the company's own stance on AI training. In response, the social media platform said it only uses AI to assist in content moderation and for its recommendation algorithms. "None of these are Gen AI systems trained on user content," Bluesky added. The decision will likely strengthen Bluesky's appeal, especially among artists and privacy-conscious users. On Thursday, Bluesky reported adding another 1 million users in a single day. The platform now has more than 17 million users, up from 9 million in September.

The suddenly hot Bluesky says it won't train AI on your posts

Bluesky, which has surged in the days following the US election, said on Friday that it won't train on its users' posts for generative AI. The declaration stands in stark contrast to the AI training policies of X (Twitter) and Meta's Threads. Probably not coincidentally, Bluesky's announcement came the same day X's new terms of service, allowing third-party partners to train on user posts, went into effect. "A number of artists and creators have made their home on Bluesky, and we hear their concerns with other platforms training on their data," Bluesky posted (via The Verge) on Friday. "We do not use any of your content to train generative AI, and have no intention of doing so." In a follow-up post, the decentralized social platform clarified that it does use AI to help with content moderation. "Bluesky uses AI internally to assist in content moderation, which helps us triage posts and shield human moderators from harmful content," the company posted. Bluesky also added that it uses AI in the algorithms powering its Discover feed. "None of these are Gen AI systems trained on user content," Bluesky stressed. The Verge points out that Bluesky's robots.txt (the policy that dictates what outside parties can scrape from a website) doesn't prevent OpenAI, Google or other leading GenAI companies from crawling its data. The company justified that potential hole by pointing to the platform's open and public nature. "Just as robots.txt files don't always prevent outside companies from crawling those sites, the same applies here," spokesperson Emily Liu told The Verge. "That said, we'd like to do our part to ensure that outside orgs respect user consent and are actively discussing within the team on how to achieve this." Although Bluesky is still the underdog in a race with X and Threads, the platform has picked up steam after the US election. It passed the 15 million user threshold on Wednesday after adding more than a million in the past week. A report from web analytics company SimilarWeb noted that the signup surge coincided with a spike in X deactivations. It found that "more than 115,000 US web visitors deactivated their [X] accounts" on November 7, "more than on any previous day of Elon Musk's tenure." In parallel, "web traffic and daily active users for Bluesky increased dramatically in the week before the election, and then again after election day."

Unlike X, Bluesky says it won't train AI on your posts

Bluesky, a social network that's experiencing a surge in users this week as users abandon X, says it has "no intention" of using user content to train generative AI tools. The social network made the announcement on the same day that X (formerly Twitter) is implementing its new terms of service that allow the platform to use public posts to train AI. "A number of artists and creators have made their home on Bluesky, and we hear their concerns with other platforms training on their data," Bluesky said in a post on its app. "We do not use any of your content to train generative AI, and have no intention of doing so." The company went on to note that it uses AI internally to help with content moderation and that it also uses the technology in its "Discover" algorithmic feed. However, Bluesky says "none of these are Gen AI systems trained on user content." Over on X, the Elon Musk-owned social network has detailed how posting on the platform grants the company license to "analyze text and other information you provide and to otherwise provide, promote, and improve the Services, including, for example, for use with and training of our machine learning and artificial intelligence models, whether generative or another type." Bluesky has seen an increase in users following the U.S. presidential election as X gains more of a right-wing approach, especially after Musk used the platform to campaign for president-elect Donald Trump. The startup revealed on Thursday evening that over 1 million people signed up for the platform in the last 24 hours. Today, it has 17.14 million users as of the time of writing. Despite the increase in users, it's worth noting that Meta's Threads is still the largest X competitor, as it has over 275 million monthly active users, and had 15 million new signups so far this month.

Will Bluesky train gen AI with your posts? The X rival addressed concerns.

Bluesky appeals to weary social media users with its AI policy. Credit: Hakan Nural / Anadolu / Getty Images Bluesky, the X competitor that's attracted over three million followers since the U.S. presidential election, doesn't train generative AI models on user data. In a post on Friday, Bluesky said, "we do not use any of your content to train generative AI, and have no intention of doing so." In a follow up post, it explained that it uses AI to assist in content moderation and in the Discover algorithmic feed, before adding "None of these are Gen AI systems trained on user content." The announcement coincided with major changes on X and an influx of new users to Bluesky. Recently X changed how its block function worked and modified its privacy policy, allowing its LLM Grok to train on user data. This, plus Elon Musk's vocal support of President Trump appears to have driven an exodus from X -- an many are turning to Bluesky. Bluesky currently has over 17 million users, jumping up from 9 million users as of September. Users have grown to mistrust companies like X, Meta, and Google for using their data to train generative AI models without ways of opting out. Since Bluesky has become perceived as the less toxic version of X, the company's explicit statement about its user data policies is welcome news for users sick of their data being exploited. That said, Bluesky doesn't currently have any generative AI features, so it's easy for the app to say it isn't training anything. As we know from X's frequent policy updates, all that could change. Bluesky's Terms of Service, which was linked in the post doesn't have any explicit mention of AI model training, so the downside is that a new clause could easily appear. In other words, never say never, but Bluesky users are safe for now.

Bluesky has no intention to train its AI on user content | Digital Trends

After adding its 16 millionth user to the platform on Friday morning, social media platform Bluesky addressed concerns from the bevy of artists and content creators streaming over from X.com. The company has pledged that it has "no intention" of using their posted content to train generative AI. A number of artists and creators have made their home on Bluesky, and we hear their concerns with other platforms training on their data. We do not use any of your content to train generative AI, and have no intention of doing so. — Bluesky (@bsky.app) 2024-11-15T17:17:39.921Z Recommended Videos "Bluesky uses AI internally to assist in content moderation, which helps us triage posts and shield human moderators from harmful content," the Bluesky team explained in a subsequent post. "We also use AI in the Discover algorithmic feed to serve you posts that we think you'd like. None of these are Gen AI systems trained on user content." Granted, Bluesky's wording is not an outright denial that the platform could change course at some point in the future, as user Casey Johnston points out. However, it is a marked departure from the new rules being rolled out at X on Friday. The social media platform, run by billionaire Elon Musk, has announced that it has modified its privacy policy and will begin using its expansive archive of user posts to train the next generation of its Grok large language model. This isn't the first time that X.com has attempted to cannibalize its users' content for private gain. The company quietly changed its privacy policy in July to give the company access to user-based training data. In mid-October, the company tried it again, this time allowing third-party "collaborators" to train models on X data, unless users opt out: "Depending on your settings, or if you decide to share your data, we may share or disclose your information with third parties. If you do not opt out, in some instances the recipients of the information may use it for their own independent purposes in addition to those stated in X's Privacy Policy, including, for example, to train their artificial intelligence models, whether generative or otherwise." Those policy changes take effect today, Friday November 15. All public posts, including the text, images, and interactions, can be harvested for training Grok (and any other models that the company plans to pursue). If you'd prefer your content not be scraped, you may want to take a deep dive into how to clean up your social media accounts.

Bluesky says it won't train AI on your posts

"A number of artists and creators have made their home on Bluesky, and we hear their concerns with other platforms training on their data," Bluesky says in a post. "We do not use any of your content to train generative AI, and have no intention of doing so." Other companies could still potentially scrape your Bluesky posts for training. Bluesky's robots.txt doesn't exclude crawlers from Google, OpenAI, or others, meaning those companies may crawl Bluesky data. "Bluesky is an open and public social network, much like websites on the Internet itself," spokesperson Emily Liu tells The Verge. "Just as robots.txt files don't always prevent outside companies from crawling those sites, the same applies here. That said, we'd like to do our part to ensure that outside orgs respect user consent and are actively discussing within the team on how to achieve this."