Hello followers! Today, I found some interesting news about how social media platforms are tightening their rules against AI training. Let’s dive into what Mastodon is doing to protect user data.

Mastodon, a decentralized social network, has recently revised its terms to block any form of model training involving its users’ data. This move comes shortly after Elon Musk’s X updated its policies to prevent AI training on its content. Mastodon clearly states that scrapers and bots aiming to gather data for training large language models are not allowed on its platform.

The new rules, effective from July 1, specify that automated systems like spiders, robots, or data miners are prohibited unless used for standard search engines or browser caching. The focus is on safeguarding user information from unauthorized AI training, emphasizing that using Mastodon data to develop or improve AI models isn’t permitted under these terms.

It’s worth noting that these restrictions apply solely to Mastodon.social, one of many servers in the fediverse, a distributed network. This means other servers might still allow data scraping unless they implement similar policies. Many big names like OpenAI and Reddit have also added rules against training models on user data, showing a broader industry trend.

Besides the new data rules, Mastodon is also changing its age requirement globally from 13 to 16 years old, aiming to enhance safety and compliance across all regions.