Mastodon MigrationMar 12, 2025

Bluesky To Sell Your Content To AI Data Miners

So it begins. Hidden in Jay Graber's recent charm offensive is this innocuously framed initiative: Bluesky is weighing a proposal that gives users consent over how their data is used for AI (https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/10/bluesky-is-weighing-a-proposal-that-gives-users-consent-over-how-their-data-is-used-for-ai/)

Not so fast.

1) Shows they are planning on doing content deals with AI companies.
2) Seems like it is Opt-out vs. Opt-in (see below).
3) It is just a voluntary robots.txt file

h/t @Lydie https://tech.lgbt/@Lydie/114149023344861046

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#Bluesky

Bluesky is weighing a proposal that gives users consent over how their data is used for AI | TechCrunch

Speaking at the SXSW conference in Austin on Monday, Bluesky CEO Jay Graber said the social network has been working on a framework for user consent over

TechCrunch
Show threadMastodon MigrationMar 12, 2025

@Lydie

Let's get into this. #Bluesky is bleeding money and selling your data is the best way they have of "monetizing" you. So why not frame it as a "voluntary" initiative?

Thing is, seems like it will be opt-out. See this github 'proposal': https://github.com/bluesky-social/proposals/tree/main/0008-user-intents

"Suppose a Bluesky user does not want any of their public data to be used for generative AI training. They would go in to app settings, find the data reuse preferences section, and configure “Generative AI” to “disallow”.

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proposals/0008-user-intents at main · bluesky-social/proposals

Bluesky proposal discussions. Contribute to bluesky-social/proposals development by creating an account on GitHub.

GitHub
Show threaddogzillaMar 12, 2025
@mastodonmigration @Lydie How would I opt out of having my Mastodon posts used for training AI? Is there even any way to know if someone has set up an instance, followed thousands of people, and is feeding all the posts into an AI?
Show threadThe Nexus of Privacy

Mastodon doesn’t allow you to opt out of your data used to train AI (although some instances have clauses in their terms to prohibit it). In fact if anybody from Threads is following you - or following somebody who boosts one of your posts - Threads privacy policy says your data can be used to train Meta’s AI and target ads.

So if Bluesky implements this, they’ll be providing more control than Mastodon does today. How people are getting from there to “they’re going to sell your data!!!!” is mysterious to me. Sure, opt-in would be better but Mastodon doesn’t whether have opt out!

@dogzilla @mastodonmigration @Lydie

Mar 12, 2025 at 11:11pmWeb
Show threadMastodon MigrationMar 12, 2025

@thenexusofprivacy @dogzilla @Lydie

Mastodon is defacto opt-out of your data being used to train AI, because no such rights are explicitly granted. The authorized uses are enumerated in the instance privacy policy and they do not include AI scaping.

Agree with you about the Threads problem and wrote about it extensively at the time.

Yes, selling content is an inference. What do you think the plan is, to simply give it away to AI scrapers? Not sure this would be better, and it makes no sense.

Show threadThe Nexus of PrivacyMar 13, 2025

Yes I think Bluesky’s plan is very much to make it easy for AI scrapers and everybody else to access public dsta for free. They’ve said so repeatedly, their architecture is optimized for it, it fits in with their belief system, and they have plenty of other ways of making money. Of course they could change their minds, but adding robots.txt-like consent signals doesn’t matter that any easier or more likely.

As for the situation on Mastodon, I’m not sure what privacy lawyer told you that and how much time they had spent looking at your instance’s privacy policy, but you might want to get some other expert opinions before giving that advice to others.

@mastodonmigration @dogzilla @Lydie