Jason KoeblerNEW: Tumblr and Wordpress are preparing to sell user data to Midjourney and OpenAI for AI training, according to internal documentation we've reviewed at 404 Media
https://www.404media.co/tumblr-and-wordpress-to-sell-users-data-to-train-ai-tools/
Adam - The Funny Brain@jasonkoebler sorry if this is a daft question, but does this affect hosted wordpress installs? I was tempted to ditch wordpress anyway to be fair, but feared migrating pains
Alison Wilder@TheFunnyBrainGames @jasonkoebler I can't imagine this data grab will be part of the open source WordPress software. That said, the jetpack plug-in has been a back door for all kinds of crazy wordpress.com shit for years, so I wouldn't be surprised if jetpack is sucking data for this purpose soon.
@alisynthesis @jasonkoebler Thank you, that helps a lot :) I initially picked Wordpress because it was open-source, but must admit I wound up using Jetpack for a lot of admin.
I will carry on looking at alternatives, but it's lovely to know there's less of a rush. :)
@TheFunnyBrainGames @jasonkoebler fwiw, there are plenty of replacements (mostly better!) for all the functionality in the Jetpack plugin. If it were me, I'd keep an eye on it to see what happens. Going to the trouble of changing your website's software from open source WP seems a bit of a panic move given what we know at the moment, unless it's something you kinda want to do anyway.
@TheFunnyBrainGames @jasonkoebler Remember that lots of huge and important publishers use WordPress to run their sites. I think the folks at Automattic know that actively sucking data from their open source WP users would be an unmitigated disaster, but I guess we'll see.
Bernard Zijlstra@jasonkoebler @TheFunnyBrainGames nope those are two completely different entities
@bernardzijlstra @jasonkoebler Thank you, that is a relief to know. :)
I will carry on checking out alternatives at a sluggish pace - I still haven't found anything that comes close in terms of tools. :)
Wolfi@TheFunnyBrainGames @jasonkoebler self hosted blogs are not affected, see: https://phpc.social/@stevegrunwell/112005152887711510
Steve Grunwell (@[email protected])
Some important context as this news breaks: #WordPress is an open-source project, available at WordPress.org. One of its co-founders, Matt Mullenweg, is CEO of #Automattic, which runs WordPress.com and owns #Tumblr. They can’t sell what they don’t have, so “WordPress” here refers to WordPress.com, *not* self-hosted WordPress instances. BUT many self-hosted instances use the Jetpack plugin, which does send data to WordPress.com, so that might be sold 🤬 https://mastodon.social/@404mediaco/112004850884204466