Stack Overflow bans users for altering answers to protest OpenAI deal
Users aren’t happy about their data being used by OpenAI
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The recent announcement of anew partnership between OpenAI and Stack Overflowhas sparked controversy in the developer community, and Stack Overflow isn’t happy.
The collaboration grantsOpenAIaccess to Stack Overflow’s API and developer feedback, while Stack Overflow will benefit from OpenAI’s generative AI expertise.
However, the partnership has since raised concerns among users who feel that their data could be being exploited without them giving consent.
Stack Overflow user protests
Reports have now emerged of users attempting to delete their posts in protest, only to find that their accounts have been suspended.
Epic Gamesdesigner Ben shared his experience on decentralized social network platform Mastodon, revealing that his attempt to edit his highly-rated answers with a protest message led to his account being suspended by Stack Overflow’s moderators.
Although the platform has a policy against post deletion, users have expressed dissatisfaction with the new partnership, believing that a change in services should see the company’s terms and conditions revisited.
Ben shared on Mastodon that the edited post had reverted to its original content within an hour, with his account being suspended for seven days.
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He added: “[The moderator crackdown is] just a reminder that anything you post on any of these platforms can and will be used for profit.”
A section in Stack Overflow’s policy reads: “This means that you cannot revoke permission for Stack Overflow to publish, distribute, store and use such content and to allow others to have derivative rights to publish, distribute, store and use such content.”
However, users have cited the “right to forget,” which forms part of the EU GDPR.
TechRadar Prohas asked Stack Overflow to comment on the unravelling situation, but we did not receive an immediate response.
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