Bluesky, which has surged in the days following the US election, said on Friday that No train on your users' posts for generative ai. The statement is in stark contrast to the ai training policies of x (twitter) and Meta's Threads. Probably not a coincidence, Bluesky's announcement came on the same day that x's new terms of service went into effect, allowing third-party partners to train on user posts.
“Several artists and creators have made their home on Bluesky and we hear their concerns about other platforms being powered by their data,” Bluesky. aware (<a target="_blank" data-i13n="elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:5;pos:1" class="link " href="https://www.theverge.com/2024/11/15/24297442/bluesky-no-intention-train-generative-ai-posts” rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank” data-ylk=”slk:via;elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:5;pos:1;itc:0;sec:content-canvas”>through The edge) on Friday. “We do not use any of its content to train generative ai and have no intention of doing so.”
In a follow-up post, the decentralized social platform clarified which uses ai to help with content moderation. “Bluesky uses ai internally to assist in content moderation, which helps us classify posts and protect human moderators from harmful content,” the company posted. Bluesky also added that it uses ai in the algorithms that power its Discover feed.
“None of these are Gen ai systems trained on user content,” Bluesky emphasized.
The edge notes that Bluesky's robots.txt file (the policy that dictates what third parties can extract from a website) does not prevent OpenAI, Google, or other leading GenAI companies from crawling your data. The company justified this possible hole by pointing out the open and public nature of the platform. “Just as robots.txt files don't always prevent outside companies from crawling those sites, the same applies here,” said spokeswoman Emily Liu. The edge. “That said, we would like to do our part to ensure that external organizations respect user consent and are actively discussing within the team about how to achieve this.”
Although Bluesky remains the underdog in a race with x and Threads, the platform has gained momentum after the US elections. It surpassed the 15 million user threshold on Wednesday after adding more than a million last week.
TO <a target="_blank" data-i13n="elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:10;pos:1" class="link " href="https://www.similarweb.com/blog/insights/social-media-news/x-traffic-peak-deactivations/” rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank” data-ylk=”slk:report;elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:10;pos:1;itc:0;sec:content-canvas”>report from web analytics company SimilarWeb noted that the increase in registrations coincided with an increase in x deactivations. It found that “more than 115,000 US web visitors deactivated their (x) accounts” on November 7, “more than any previous day of Elon Musk’s mandate.” In parallel, “Bluesky’s web traffic and daily active users increased dramatically in the week before the election and then again after Election Day.”
