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

  • TWeaKEnglish
    20•1 year ago

    Class actions need to be made. Not just against AI, but Facebook, Google, Microsoft, banks… Basically anyone who collects data for profit while slipping it in as a secondary transaction in the terms and conditions, without providing any consideration.

    The data brokerage industry is a $400bn industry, yet there are only 8bn people in the world. Even if we assume everyone is online and everyone’s data is of equal value (both are far from true), that means an individual’s data is worth at least $50 per year on the market. These are just people buying and selling data, and does not include companies that keep proprietary datasets and only sell advertising, or the value of peoples’ written works online (which is likely of even greater value). Businesses are now selling off our copyrighted work for far less than its worth, all the while not paying the creator their rightful dues.

    It simply isn’t the case that data is traded for access to the website or service. That isn’t how the transaction is presented. Front and centre, the services are offered free of charge (or sometimes, eg with Microsoft, you already pay for the service) and then a second transaction is buried in the fine print in obscure language. The entire purpose of this is deception, so the user does not understand the value they are giving up, and so as to deny them a fair opportunity to assess any supposed value exchange - because it isn’t an exchange, you’re giving it up for free, just like they give you access for free. It’s two separate transactions deceptively run parallel.

    You can’t build a car without paying for the nuts and bolts. They steal the nuts and bolts we produce and then sell them on as their own products.

    Edit: weird formatting issues from posting with low signal.

    • @jarfil@beehaw.org
      1•1 year ago

      There is no hidden transaction, you signed up for a service to:

      • Upload your content so they send copies to whoever asks.

      In exchange, they used to show you ads, and that was fair. Then, they started collecting your browsing data and selling that too… that is a second transaction, and got regulated. Now, they are selling a service of bundling together the content people asked them to share in the first place.

      In your analogy, you asked them to send your nuts and bolts for free. In exchange, they advertised stuff to you. Then they started collecting the addresses of your clients… that was not fine. Now, they’re throwing nuts and bolts from multiple people into a box and selling it as a “sampler kit”, nuts and bolts you did ask them to send for free.

      Did you not understand the value of your product? Maybe, but you asked them to do it anyway… and you’re doing the same by posting content right here. 🤷

      • TWeaKEnglish
        2•1 year ago

        It is a hidden transaction. They try to argue it both ways, that it’s an exchange of access for data, but then they hide the data in the fine print. When you buy something, the price isn’t in the fine print, it’s front and centre. When you buy insurance, they have to provide a “key facts page” where they detail what you’re paying for in general terms. The key parts being exchanged are supposed to be at the forefront, not hidden in the terms and conditions.

        People don’t understand the value of their product because businesses hide that part in the terms and conditions to inhibit their ability to properly assess the value.

        In your analogy, you asked them to send your nuts and bolts for free. In exchange, they advertised stuff to you. Then they started collecting the addresses of your clients… that was not fine. Now, they’re throwing nuts and bolts from multiple people into a box and selling it as a “sampler kit”, nuts and bolts you did ask them to send for free.

        I didn’t ask them, they advertised their service in bright lights saying it was free. Then, the fine print at the point of entry says they can pick the pockets of their guests.

        You really are trying to advocate for the devil here, and I think if you take a step back you’ll see that you’re just parroting the same arguments they make. Such arguments have not been properly challenged yet, but if you stack them up against the core principles of contract law - through which all trade is conducted - they are clearly wrong.

  • Computerchairgeneral
    14•1 year ago

    So after banning adult content a few years ago, Tumblr decided to shoot itself in the other foot? It feels like the people in charge are actively trying to drive off the site’s users.

    • FaceDeer
      20•1 year ago

      They’re giving you services in exchange for your contents.

      Does nobody even think about TOS any more? You don’t have to read any specific one, just realize the basic universal truth that no website is going to accept your contents without some kind of legal protection that allows them to use that content.

        • FaceDeer
          9•1 year ago

          Are you serious? We’re speaking in the Fediverse right now. It’s notable in its difference. Though instances have their own TOSes, so it’d be pretty trivial to set one up to harvest content for AI training as well.

            • FaceDeer
              2•1 year ago

              A user’s data still belongs to the user when they post it on sites like Reddit and such, too. The ToS doesn’t take ownership away from them, at least not in any case that I’ve seen. It just gives the site the license to use it as well.

              • @eveninghere@beehaw.org
                1•1 year ago

                I mean, even if that’s tue, I don’t count it as “ownership” if they change the monetization scheme for what I wrote, without giving me a good chance to say what I get in return. Reddit even allegedly put back comments which users deleted.

                It’s near-impossible to delete all my own comments on Reddit, for example.

                • FaceDeer
                  1•1 year ago

                  It’s true, go ahead and read the ToS. It only grants a license to Reddit to use your content. It explicitly says:

                  You retain any ownership rights you have in Your Content, but you grant Reddit the following license to use that Content:

                  And then goes on to enumerate what you’re licensing them to do with it. There’s also a section titled “Changes to these Terms” about how they can change the ToS going forward.

    • @jarfil@beehaw.org
      2•1 year ago

      No, and no, and no:

      • If a user wants to assign ownership to a company, that’s their right.
      • These companies DO NOT ask for ownership, they only license the content (ownership carries responsibilities, they don’t want those).
      • Whether a user wants to get paid or not, is again up to them (see the various OpenSource and CC licenses).
      • @eveninghere@beehaw.org
        2•1 year ago

        Hard disagree.

        • Companies don’t give you a good chance to prevent them from eroding your control on the data further.
        • Even if they technically disown the data, they’re doing even worse. They are de-facto doing anything they want without taking responsibility
        • Open source / CC licenses don’t apply to whatever user data people are talking about here
  • @survivalmachine@beehaw.org
    3•1 year ago

    I don’t know what Train AI Tools are, but I’d be ok with them if they had the temperament of Thomas the Train rather than Blain the Mono. How do we know which Train AI is buying our data?