X (formerly Twitter) jumped on the AI bandwagon some time ago with its LLM-based conversational chatbot Grok, and now it has adopted another popular practice in the fast-growing AI market: automatically opting the users in to train the AI on the content they publish.
Luckily, the change was noticed by the surprised users. However, they were not the only ones who did not see the controversial move coming. It turned out that Elon Musk and his social media platform didn’t inform European authorities either, TechCrunch reports.
If you wish to opt out of the data collection, you can do so pretty easily, although you have to do it through the desktop browser because the mobile app is yet not displaying the respective settings.
This is how to opt out in just a few seconds:
- Open X on your desktop.
- Select “More” in the left bar.
- Go to “Settings and privacy”.
- Click on “Privacy and safety”.
- Choose “Grok” towards the bottom of the list.
- Uncheck the box allowing the data collection.
The move might not only lower the trust of some of the users, but it can also get X into trouble with European authorities because the automatic opt-in might violate the GDPR legislation protecting the privacy of European citizens.
Indeed, the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC), which leads on oversight of X’s compliance with the European Union’s GDPR, said to TechCrunch that it was left surprised by the platform’s decision. The agency is actively communicating with X on the issue, with the last messages being exchanged this Thursday. Upon finding out, the DPC reached out to X and expects an explanation early next week.
It would not be unprecedented if X ended up in legal trouble in the EU. Meta faced similar issues when it recently tried to collect the public content of Europeans, only to back off after the intervention of EU authorities.
To make a comparison, although Meta planned to automatically opt the users in, the company informed them about its plans in advance and gave them (a rather non-user-friendly) option to opt-out in advance. Yet the EU was not impressed, and it surely won’t be impressed with the current action of Musk’s X.