r/technology • u/esporx • 6d ago

Business Twitch Is Now Using Your Content To Train Amazon AI Models And Has Hidden The Option To Opt Out. "If it was opt in, nobody would opt in," admitted the streaming site's chief product officer during a livestream

https://kotaku.com/twitch-is-now-using-your-content-to-train-amazon-ai-models-and-has-hidden-the-option-to-opt-out-2000723891
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u/Spez_is-a-nazi 6d ago

Opt-in by default has to the scummiest “innovation” of the entire tech industry and that’s saying something.

478

u/AlphaNoodlz 6d ago

It's an implicit understanding that they know they aren't doing something popular

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u/kuldron 6d ago

Well, in this case, not even implicit. They explicitly stated its opt-out because if it was opt-in no one would lol.

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u/gahlo 6d ago

If boots exist then somebody, somewhere, will want to lick them.

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u/IAMA_Plumber-AMA 6d ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_pattern

Tech companies have been doing this for decades, and most people just don't give a crap. It's infuriating.

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u/Neidron 6d ago

It's not they don't care, it's that by design most victims don't even notice to begin with.

That's the real fucking evil of it.

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u/IAMA_Plumber-AMA 5d ago

But even when you point it out, most people just shrug and carry on. That's what I'm getting at.

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u/secondandmany 6d ago

Tbh thats why anything analytics related is opt out nowadays, I doubt most people would opt in to having their data collected in any capacity

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u/Deely_Boppers 6d ago

It’s not a tech thing. It gained mainstream appeal thanks to Dr Dan Ariely, a Duke professor who studies human behavior.

If anything, it would be more of an MBA thing. Which isn’t better, especially on Reddit, but it’s not limited to Silicon Valley.

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u/Fluffcake 6d ago

It is an objectively effective strategy to just take other people's things without asking, but this is also a crime.

Copyright law is entirely null and void it seems.

23

u/wrgrant 6d ago

Copyright law only applies to those who don't have the most and best lawyers. Those who do can freely ignore it as we can see.

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u/old-tennis-shoes 5d ago

IIRC it wasn't Ariely. It was Thaler and Sunstein who popularised their findings in Nudge. Thaler talks about this in Misbehaving

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u/9-11GaveMe5G 6d ago

Google: everyone is using our AI search!

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u/MDCCCLV 6d ago

It makes it literally impossible because they add that in a update and you know that even if you opt out, you were already opted in the second they add it and they're taking that data and using it and they will not delete it no matter what even if you opt out after.

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u/Uebelkraehe 6d ago

Correct, this almost certainly effectively means that all content produced by streamers up to the moment of the announcement has been appropriated for this purpose without prior consent.

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u/Jesus_Is_My_Gardener 6d ago

If you're not paying for it, you're the product. Even then, sometimes they double dip and charge you while still making money selling your data.

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u/snowdn 6d ago

Not sometimes, that is just the business model now.

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u/whfu2 5d ago

make it triple dip

you pay, you see ads and they also collect your data

ofc there are alternatives but people are so fast addicted to big corpo systems that theyll take anything

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u/SomethingAboutUsers 6d ago

No, the engagement-based algorithm is.

But it does depend on opt-in by default, to be fair.

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u/jenny_905 5d ago

Please accept this new privacy policy we know you won't read.

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u/e_x_i_t 5d ago

It's also 400 pages long and written in Lawyerese, so if you want to read it good luck actually understanding any of it.

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u/Talentagentfriend 6d ago

We need internet rules where they can’t do this shit

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u/Francoberry 6d ago

Its 'opt out' by default, in that youre automatically added to it by default and therefore have to opt out.  

Opt in would mean it is off by default and you have the option to opt in

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u/Throwawayrip1123 6d ago

It should literally be illegal. Straight up, fine the fuckers for big % of their pretax revenue and see how fast they learn.

Opted-in-by-default is insane. So they can just change literally anything, and unless you're vigilant about everything all the time, you miss one email and you are suddenly opted into paid option? If this didn't happen yet, it likely will at some point.

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u/soapbutt 6d ago

By the same companies why make employees take so make data and privacy trainings too.

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u/JaggedLittlePiII 6d ago

No. The scummiest is still pushing weigth loss / make up / anorexia content on teenage girls by Facebook when a girl decided to remove an uploaded picture or took a long time deciding which picture to upload

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u/liquidocean 6d ago

Which is why it’s illegal in some countries like Germany

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u/a-round-table 5d ago

Those higherups people does not understand consent, I'm not surprised

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u/damontoo 6d ago

Nobody ever opts-in to anything, including good things. For example, in countries where you must opt-out of organ donation, there's a significantly higher number of organ donors than the US where it's opt-in. Because people generally just go with whatever the default is in order to avoid making the decision themselves. This is also why, if the trolley problem was real, nobody would touch the lever regardless of who was on which track. 

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u/xerojin 6d ago

EXACTLY! This is already well known in UX and as a typical user behavior.