X’s New Terms of Service: Your Posts to Train AI, Fines for Heavy Usage, and Changes to Blocking
An upcoming revision to X’s (formerly Twitter) terms of service is set to make a significant shift in how the platform operates, particularly regarding users’ posts. Elon Musk’s social media company will soon allow posts to be used explicitly for training its AI models, including the platform’s Grok chatbot and other AI systems.
Although the practice of using public posts for AI training has been in place since a quiet update to X’s help files in July, the new terms, effective November 15, will officially confirm this. Section 3 of the revised terms, titled “Content on the Services,” outlines that X can “analyze text and other information you provide” to enhance its services, including “for use with and training of our machine learning and artificial intelligence models.” This follows Musk’s earlier statement that his AI project would be trained on user tweets.
What remains unclear is whether users will retain the current option to opt out of having their posts scraped for AI training. X has not responded to inquiries about this, and Musk himself has not provided any further details through his posts.
The revisions also introduce a controversial new “Liquidated Damages” section in Section 5, which imposes financial penalties for excessive usage. Users could face a fine of $15,000 for viewing or accessing more than one million posts within a 24-hour period. X justifies this move as a way to protect its system resources and data, but it’s likely also aimed at discouraging competitors from scraping content to train their own AI models. However, some experts warn this could hamper legitimate research efforts that rely on automated data scraping for academic studies.
Another noteworthy update in X’s terms is the company’s legal shift to Texas. All legal disputes will now be handled in courts located in Tarrant County, Texas, or the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas. This move coincides with the company’s recent headquarters relocation to the Austin suburb of Bastrop. Critics suggest the location shift is strategic, as Musk has previously filed lawsuits in this district, notably choosing a court presided over by a conservative judge, Reed O’Connor.
Additionally, changes to X’s blocking feature are on the horizon. A post from X’s engineering account on October 17 indicated that blocked users will soon be able to view public posts, though they won’t be able to engage with them (e.g., by liking, replying, or reposting). This adjustment, according to the platform, is meant to counter the misuse of the block feature for sharing private or harmful information about blocked individuals. Musk has also publicly criticized the current block function, suggesting the forthcoming changes align with his view that it “makes no sense.”
As X continues to evolve under Musk’s leadership, these updates signal a transformation in how user data, platform control, and content moderation are handled, sparking both interest and concern across the user base.
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