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" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/xaviernewswire.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/image-from-rawpixel-id-6111516-jpeg.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/xaviernewswire.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/image-from-rawpixel-id-6111516-jpeg.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1"/>By Joseph Hammann, Staff Writer
AI Data Harvesting Strikes Back
By Joseph Hammann
In all honesty, I never thought I would need to make a follow-up to “I Mind AI Mining My Data” so quickly. However, so much new information came through about the subject and that it quickly made that article outdated. [The way that many major social media companies, or technology companies in general, are trying to act like vampires to everyday people’s innocent data, training their AI without letting people back out of data mining.] It infuriates me.
Without completely parroting what I said in the previous piece, I wished more social media platforms would let the users have the choice of how their data is used instead of forcing your data to be mined. I don’t want to admit it, but in the rising ages of social media and AI, I can’t say that I didn’t see it coming. I don’t want to say it’s becoming a regular thing and it’s inevitable.
In October, new rules and guidelines were put in play at X that resulted in any post, regardless of content, being used to train generative AI. When I found out about that, I was furious. Although I quit X in February, I felt like this was the nail in the coffin that got me the motivation to finally delete my account completely, even though the AI training didn’t start until Nov. 14. It’s the very definition of what I wanted these social media companies to not do.
While thinking about this, something occurred to me which would be a more proper solution than just ignoring the issue or to tell the company’s heads to change their ways, because speaking realistically, they won’t.
Last semester, I took a social media marketing class and something that stuck out to me was how one of the largest pitfalls marketers fall into is the need to be on every social media platform, and which also applies for regular customers and social media users.
I believe we’re at the point where there are smaller social media sites that more people have been migrating to because they do not want their data to be trained by AI and the larger social media platforms are no longer the only option for social media sites. Sites such as BlueSky, Mastodon and Cara have received such footing for these exact reasons. People have more places to experiment. It’s becoming clear to me that we are entering a new age of technology where people are becoming more frustrated with the men in the chairs taking all control of their social media experiences. By supporting these smaller platforms that aren’t under such corporate control, that could perhaps be a step in the right direction.
When it comes to social media choice, it’s up to the user what fits their preference and what type of content they want to see. For me, it’s one that doesn’t track my data for artificial intelligence.
