Automattic will sign a contract with OpenAI for Midjourney to learn off of Tumblr and Wordpress
Hello! Automattic, Tumblr's parent company, will sign a contract with OpenAI and Midjourney so Midjourney can learn off of Tumblr's and WordPress' art and other user data. :) (The full text of this article is copy/pasted in the cut below). You can opt out! but I truly cannot imagine a more idiotic or out of touch decision on the part of Tumblr's CEO.
First thing's first: When/if this goes live, opt out of this immediately. Do this even if you're not an artist. The more people opt out, the less valuable this contract is to Midjourney. in an ideal world, literally all of the active users would opt out, but if we can even get to 50% that's pretty delicious.
Second: Contact Tumblr Support. It's vital that you do this politely. Tumblr staff is not responsible for this decision and the point of doing this is to show the userbase's unwillingness to be involved in this, not harangue Tumblr staff. (Seriously, stop haranguing Tumblr staff). Here's a script:
Hi, I'm writing in to express my disappointment in Automattic's pending contract with OpenAI to sell user data. Midjourney is already embroiled in copyright lawsuits, and it is not possible to train it without compromising copyright, including violating the IP of artists on this site. I strongly protest this contract and will opt out if it goes live. Depending on the privacy terms around what user data is sold to OpenAI and why, it is possible I will leave the platform entirely. Thank you for your time.
Third: Download Glaze and start poisoning them prompts, my friends
Fourth: Stare into the middle distance for a second with me because holy fucking shit? How stupid can one decision be?
Tumblr and Wordpress are preparing to sell user data to Midjourney and OpenAI, according to a source with internal knowledge about the deals and internal documentation referring to the deals.
The exact types of data from each platform going to each company are not spelled out in documentation we’ve reviewed, but internal communications reviewed by 404 Media make clear that deals between Automattic, the platforms’ parent company, and OpenAI and Midjourney are imminent.
The internal documentation details a messy and controversial process within Tumblr itself. One internal post made by Cyle Gage, a product manager at Tumblr, states that a query made to prepare data for OpenAI and Midjourney compiled a huge number of user posts that it wasn’t supposed to. It is not clear from Gage’s post whether this data has already been sent to OpenAI and Midjourney, or whether Gage was detailing a process for scrubbing the data before it was to be sent.
Gage wrote:
“the way the data was queried for the initial data dump to Midjourney/OpenAI means we compiled a list of all tumblr’s public post content between 2014 and 2023, but also unfortunately it included, and should not have included:
private posts on public blogs
posts on deleted or suspended blogs
unanswered asks (normally these are not public until they’re answered)
private answers (these only show up to the receiver and are not public)
posts that are marked ‘explicit’ / NSFW / ‘mature’ by our more modern standards (this may not be a big deal, I don’t know)
content from premium partner blogs (special brand blogs like Apple’s former music blog, for example, who spent money with us on an ad campaign) that may have creative that doesn’t belong to us, and we don’t have the rights to share with this-parties; this one is kinda unknown to me, what deals are in place historically and what they should prevent us from doing.”
Gage’s post makes clear that engineers are working on compiling a list of post IDs that should not have been included, and that password-protected posts, DMs, and media flagged as CSAM and other community guidelines violations were not included.
Automattic plans to launch a new setting on Wednesday that will allow users to opt-out of data sharing with third parties, including AI companies, according to the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, and internal documents. A new FAQ section we reviewed is titled “What happens when you opt out?” states that “If you opt out from the start, we will block crawlers from accessing your content by adding your site on a disallowed list. If you change your mind later, we also plan to update any partners about people who newly opt-out and ask that their content be removed from past sources and future training.”
404 Media has asked Automattic how it accidentally compiled data that it shouldn’t share, and whether any of that content was shared with OpenAI, but did not immediately hear back from the company. 404 Media asked Automattic about an imminent deal with Midjourney last week but did not hear back then, either.
Another internal document shows that, on February 23, an employee asked in a staff-only thread, “Do we have assurances that if a user opts out of their data being shared with third parties that our existing data partners will be notified of such a change and remove their data?”
Andrew Spittle, Automattic’s head of AI replied: “We will notify existing partners on a regular basis about anyone who's opted out since the last time we provided a list. I want this to be an ongoing process where we regularly advocate for past content to be excluded based on current preferences. We will ask that content be deleted and removed from any future training runs. I believe partners will honor this based on our conversations with them to this point. I don't think they gain much overall by retaining it.” Automattic did not respond to a question from 404 Media about whether it could guarantee that people who opt out will have their data deleted retroactively.
News about a deal between Tumblr and Midjourney has been rumored and speculated about on Tumblr for the last week. Someone claiming to be a former Tumblr employee announced in a Tumblr blog post that the platform was working on a deal with Midjourney, and the rumor made it onto Blind, an app for verified employees of companies to anonymously discuss their jobs. 404 Media has seen the Blind posts, in which what seems like an Automattic employee says, “I'm not sure why some of you are getting worked up or worried about this. It's totally legal, and sharing it publicly is perfectly fine since it's right there in the terms & conditions. So, go ahead and spread the word as much as you can with your friends and tech journalists, it's totally fine.”
Separately, 404 Media viewed a public, now-deleted post by Gage, the product manager, where he said that he was deleting all of his images off of Tumblr, and would be putting them on his personal website. A still-live post says, “i've deleted my photography from tumblr and will be moving it slowly but surely over to cylegage.com, which i'm building into a photography portfolio that i can control end-to-end.” At one point last week, his personal website had a specific note stating that he did not consent to AI scraping of his images. Gage’s original post has been deleted, and his website is now a blank page that just reads “Cyle.” Gage did not respond to a request for comment from 404 Media.
Several online platforms have made similar deals with AI companies recently, including Reddit, which entered into an AI content licensing deal with Google and said in its SEC filing last week that it’s “in the early stages of monetizing [its] user base” by training AI on users’ posts. Last year, Shutterstock signed a six year deal with OpenAI to provide training data.
OpenAI and Midjourney did not respond to requests for comment.
by the way irt boycotting sanrio the fact that they had stores open in 2011 is no longer particularly relevant (theyre closed), the important thing is that their products (specifically the plushies) are made by jazwares which has a wildly zionist ceo
so rather than a sanrio boycott it's a jazwares boycott which applies to a lot of popular plushes: sanrio, pokemon, squishmallows, etc.
i have an angel and devil on my shoulder but also a third guy who just tells me to do strange gayboy shit thats not really good or bad per se but it will make everyone in my life think im weirder
As a general rule, if you're having food cravings, you should probably pay attention to that, because it's usually a sign that your body needs something. Like, if you've just finished a workout and are suddenly desperately craving fries? Maybe you're low on salt, you did just sweat a whole bunch. Period cravings for junk food? Your body's under some stress and working hard, you need energy, and foods with a lot of fat and/or sugar are an easy way to get that.
Back in the early 1900's when exploring Antarctica was all the rage, y'know what was a major part of everyones daily rations? Butter. Just butter. The men out on the sledging teams would have cravings to eat entire sticks of butter with nothing else, so that was included in their rations. And that happened because under those extreme circumstances, their bodies desperately needed as many calories as possible, so their diet consisted mainly of butter, chocolate, and animal fat. Eating entire sticks of butter was the healthiest possible diet for them.
That's an extreme example of course, but my point is, there's no such thing as inherently Good or Bad food. Anything that's edible can be healthy under the right circumstances, just like anything can be an unhealthy choice under the wrong circumstances. Your body knows what it needs. Listen to it. Unless you're actively going through a serious medical situation, you do not need a tightly restricted diet. Diet culture is a scam, body fat is natural and healthy, food is good for you, and calories are the fuel your body needs to power its continued survival.
Real talk tho Mob is gonna grow up and choose some constructive but random-ass occupation like healthcare clerk or something idk but word of mouth means that everyone is going to know him as “my friend has a friend who also does exorcisms”
like maybe spooky noises have started coming from that sketchy chest freezer you bought off Facebook so you tell your friend and they say “oh yeah my cousin knows this dude, he can take care of that for you, called him last year to deal with a cursed bong, he’s 100% legit"
later that evening this COMPLETELY JACKED guy shows up at your apartment and you’re like What are you gonna do, punch the ghost or something? But no he politely asks if he can come in, stands in front of the freezer for a minute without doing anything, then tells you that the evil spirit is gone now and you can store your cowshare portion in peace. Whole thing seems kinda suspect but musclebro didn’t charge you anything and anyway the spooky noises have stopped so no harm done, right?
And then maybe a few months later your coworker tells you that they swear they saw this creepy headless figure walking home last night so you’re like, Y'know I know this guy, 100% legit, I bet he could look into it for you…
Okay but. At some point Mob is going to run into a problem where there is no spirit to exorcise. So a friend of a friend recommended this jacked guy to fix your haunted freezer problem, but the guy just looks intently at your freezer for a minute. Then he turns to you and tells you that he doesn’t know how to fix your freezer, but he knows a guy who CAN help. At this point you’re kinda intrigued, but also sure, whatever, so the tall guy calls his friend and within the hour a greasy guy in a cheap suit shows up. He’s a lot more talkative than the first guy, and before you know it he’s started taking apart your freezer, and then the electric socket, chatting about spirits causing faulty wiring all the while. You’d meant to stop him, but the guy seems to know what he is doing, and before you know it he’s rewired the socket, replaced a faulty cable and rebuild the freezer. You might have complained but he charged you less than any electrician would request as the transportation fee alone, so you shut up, pay him, and the two guys leave together. The haunted noises have stopped. You look up the guy on the internet later but can’t find much except for the ugliest website you’ve ever seen and a ten year old twitter hate campaign you can’t discern the cause off. No matter, it makes an intriguing enough story for your coworkers later.
its rather annoying to me how its so normal to demonize people that get angry and bitter because of trauma instead of sad. its such a normal reaction to get angry because something bad happens to you but theres so many people that have such tight views of "good victims" that you have anything other than depression or anxiety or smth or turn bitter and theyre like. Your honor, kill them with rocks
firefox just started doing this too so remember kids if you want to stream things like netflix or hulu over discord without the video being blacked out you just have to disable hardware acceleration in your browser settings!
Since I’m looking at the comments and seeing a lot of people asking what hardware acceleration is and getting wildly incorrect answers, here you go. This is what hardware acceleration is. It’s not DRM, and it’s not placing a limit on memory usage (unless you have weird definitions for both “memory” and “placing a limit”).
This is what hardware acceleration is:
“Do you just have a graphic for this on hand at all times?”
It's just one of those days where you don't want to scroll down or up every post is fucked everyblogger sucks you dont really know why but you want to justify blockin someones head off
The whole self love thing is good and all but some people can’t fathom being loved. They can’t imagine there being anything good about them. So they can’t simply just stop doing unhealthy things, there’s a process.
If you can’t say “I love my body!” say “my body gets me from place to place.”
If you can’t say “I’m beautiful,” begin by shutting down the “I’m ugly” thoughts and saying “I’m a person.”
If you can’t say “I’m valuable” begun by shutting down the “I’m worthless” thoughts and say “all people deserve basic respect, and I’m a person.”
If you can’t say “I’m important,” or “I’m kind” say “I am the one who waters my plant every week” or “I am the one who tips the kind barista down the street” or “I am the one who makes sure my dog does not eat plastic” or “I am the one who leaves long comments on people’s fan fictions.”
I’ve genuinely never seen a way to bridge the gap, especially body-wise. There’s loads about self-confidence and loving your body EVERYWHERE, but no one really explains how to get there. It’s great to have the former, but I’m glad this info is out there.
I can't begin to count the amount of times I've had to witness drama because someone's believed I've said something suspect and instead of opening a dialogue privately and asking me to clarify, they assumed the worst and humiliated themselves in front of whatever group they were trying to "warn" about me.
And also PLEASE learn how to communicate your problems outside of snide remarks and passive-aggression.
my role on the leftist commune will be passive-aggressively moving the freshly-washed “clean” dishes that still have food residue on them back into the “unclean” section
imagine just wanting to be friends, but they start subtly treating you like you were their child, and it's nice at first, but as time goes on it starts feeling patronizing and smothering, like you're not an adult.
imagine being a woman and finding yourself slowly turning into the caretaker of people your age or even older without really realizing until you can't leave because what would they do without you?
imagine hanging around some people you would barely call "friends", much less "family", but since you have nowhere else to go, you stay, lulled by security, and at some point it dawns on you: you're their pet.
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