I wasn't prepared for who this was for

From instructions on how to opt out, look at the official staff post on the topic. It also gives more information on Tumblr's new policies. If you are opting out, remember to opt out each separate blog individually.

Please reblog this post, so it will get more votes!

And again, please reblog this post!

So far: 34 votes, only 5 reblogs.

just learned about Flaco the Eurasian eagle owl who people “freed” from the Central Park zoo. people tracked his location on Twitter and every time zoo keepers tried to get him back they would make noise and scare him away. as a result, he died not even a year after his escape after striking a window. he was 13 years old, he would have lived another 40 years if he had been left alone.

being a conservationist really makes me hate the general public sometimes

Tumblr is doing some stupid AI shit so go to blog settings > Visibility > Prevent third-party sharing.

also use Nightshade and Glaze to protect your artwork and images!!!!

here's a link to Nightshade

here's a link to Glaze

best combination is usin Nightshade then Glaze on your images. Glaze creates a protective layer and Nightshade poisons the A.I. software.

Well, see you, friends

https://www.404media.co/tumblr-and-wordpress-to-sell-users-data-to-train-ai-tools/

Don't go after staff members because of this, for what I know they weren't even informed until later in the process. You know who this comes from.

full article, for those who don't want to sign up for an account:

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. 

who would even want to opt in anyway?

Like great on giving the option i guess but as soon as it drops I can't imagine that anyone is going to pick any other option but opt out.

The rumour mill within ex-employees say they already sent the data to openAi, but I can't validate if that's exact or not

I feel like if there is/will be an opt out it violates the spirit of the option to not have even warned users this was coming.

Yeah that's a pure damage control setting. Once they have sent your data to openAI and Midjourney, you opting out won't take your posts out of the LLMs. It's shit and they know it.

you need to get it out of your mind that psychosomatic illness is just “making up symptoms” when it’s actually much more like your body is being actively poisoned by chemicals released from your brain

if you’re so stressed that you’re puking your guts up every morning, are unable to eat or keep anything down, you can’t look at light without feeling infinitely worse and feel exhausted and in pain all the time (or whatever your particular stress induced symptom set is) you’re not just feeling like that because you’ve willed it into being. your body is begging for relief from the constant barrage of stress hormones and it requires the fundamental source of stress to go away, not just distracting yourself from the symptoms

just because the root is psychological doesn’t mean the result isn’t an entirely physical process.

This and also "your body is desperately trying to alert you to the fact that stress is killing you"

Hi, Tumblr. It’s Tumblr. We’re working on some things that we want to share with you. 

AI companies are acquiring content across the internet for a variety of purposes in all sorts of ways. There are currently very few regulations giving individuals control over how their content is used by AI platforms. Proposed regulations around the world, like the European Union’s AI Act, would give individuals more control over whether and how their content is utilized by this emerging technology. We support this right regardless of geographic location, so we’re releasing a toggle to opt out of sharing content from your public blogs with third parties, including AI platforms that use this content for model training. We’re also working with partners to ensure you have as much control as possible regarding what content is used.

Here are the important details:

If you have concerns, please read through the Help Center doc linked above and contact us via Support if you still have questions.

For the people in the notes requesting this to be an opt-in and not and opt-out... It doesn't matter much. This is straight from the person in charge of this heist:

So the setting only function is to kindly request openAI to not use your data, and it's entirely up to them to do it or not.

@staff

I do not trust these people to honor this setting.

unfortunately i Do feel better when i clean my living space and eat enough fruits and veggies and go outside and generally remember i am a mammal :| real pity that knowing this does not make it easier to do those things

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:

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?

PSA: Tumblr/Wordpress is preparing to start selling our user data to Midjourney and OpenAI.

you have to MANUALLY opt out of it as well.

to opt out on desktop, click your blog ➡️ blog settings ➡️ scroll til you see visibility options and it’ll be the last option to toggle.

to opt out on mobile, click your blog ➡️ scroll then click visibility ➡️ toggle opt out option.

if you’ve already opted out of showing up in google searches, it’s preselected for you. but you also have to opt out for each blog you own separately, so if you’d like to prevent AI scraping your blog i’d really recommend taking the time to opt out. (source)

Tabula Risso

movies where someone hears an important message only once and retains all the details….

girl if that were me, we’d be fucked. I have to reread emails like 4 times.

if it were me having to repeat my dead father’s instructions on destroying the death star:

I was in a college psych class, and the teacher was doing some kind of exercise about memory, patterns, and retention. He began with, “for instance, if I asked you what number the first letter of your name is in the alphabet, you wouldn’t be able to tell me right aw–” “Ten,” I said. “What?” “J. J is ten,” I said again. He stared at me. “I happened to learn it while looking at the alphabet when I was five or six, and it just stayed in my brain,” I told him. Then we did an exercise on retention. “I’m going to tell you a story,” he said, “and then I’m going to send you out of the room for five minutes, and when you come back, you have to repeat as much of the story back to me as possible.” He told me a long and meandering story with no plot or structure, just a random series of events, place names, actions, etc. Then he sent me out of the room. I looked at the wall for a while. He called me back in five minutes later, stood me up in front of the class, and asked me to repeat “just as much of the story as you remember.” Apparently while I’d been gone he’d been telling the class about how eyewitness accounts aren’t reliable because people don’t remember things well after a certain period of time. So I told his story back to him– not verbatim, but certain phrases were exact– and watched the consternation in his face as I accidentally blew up his (valid! and extensively studied!) lesson about how bad people’s retention is. “It’s like a song,” I tried to explain to him, and the class. “Or a poem. Every part of the story has a little tag to remember it. I looked at the chalkboard while you were saying this part. My leg itched while you were saying that part. A chair squeaked during the next part. Then I just have to come back and go over all the sensations that I had while you were” “Sit down,” he said. I sat. Turns out I’m Autisms Georg adn should not have been counted

ADHD version: A friend asked, on a field trip, why I knew the scientific name for Caltha palustris, “Well, we did that [one week long] field ID course [three years previously] and we saw it in one of the bogs”.

This, I was informed, is very much not a normal reason to remember the scientific name of a plant for the rest of your life.

It took me five whole years to learn when my partner’s birthday is.

I can remember specific details about games I played over two decades ago that I have not played since.

I once forgot it was my birthday. On my birthday. And when my sister (Who lived several hours away) jumped out of hiding and yelled happy birthday, I looked around to see who she was talking to.

Okay someone asked me earlier "Hey CT, you study the occult for a living, off the top of your head, what's the most popular form of the occult in today's world?"

Pseudo-nutrition. Bar none. A massive amount of the fad dieting world goes beyond simple misinformation and ignorance and full on into a systemized non-scientific theory of anatomy and nutrition that 100% qualifies as magic. If you replace the term "toxins" with "evil ghosts" half of these blogs would sound like sumerian curse tablets.

then again what would i expect from radfems, the ideology that took lesbianism as in "women attracted to women & people involved in their culture" and said "okay but what if we made this a requirement for feminism and centered it entirely around it's relationship to men and demanded straight cis women be lesbians while kicking out all the trans people and bisexuals who have been a part of this community forever"

An asexual person does not feel sexual attraction. They do not feel sexually aroused when looking at a person.

But all the physical buttons are still there. Asexual people still have cocks and cunts and nipples. Many asexuals enjoy physical stimulation, because you don't need to feel sexual attraction for stimulation to feel good. Those are separate concepts. Some asexual people do not enjoy physical stimulation. That's ok too!!

When I was figuring out how my body worked, I was not sexually attracted to the bathtub faucet. It still made me orgasm.

Sexual attraction and enjoying physical stimulation are not the same damn thing.

Toucan: “that there just ain’t natural”