X suspends AI training over EU regulator’s concern for data protection

Social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, has announced that it will review its use of personal data following pressure from European regulators.

More specifically, the Elon Musk-owned platform is suspending its use of customer data to train its AI-powered chatbot Grok.

X has its European headquarters in Ireland and is therefore regulated by the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC).

The DPC had launched a court case, arguing that users’ data privacy rights had been violated by X. Consequently, X suspended its use of AI pending further investigation of compliance with European data protection rules, adding: “We will continue to work with the DPC about Grok and other AI matters as we have been doing since last year.”

DPC chief commissioner Des Hogan said: “One of our main roles as an independent regulator and rights-based organisation is to ensure the best outcome for data subjects, and today’s developments will help us to continue protecting the rights and freedoms of X users across the EU and EEA.

“We will continue to engage with all data controllers to ensure the rights of our citizens under the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and the GDPR are upheld.”

X is not the only social media platform to fall foul of European regulators over data protection concerns and the use of AI.

Meta, formerly known as Facebook, announced in July that it would pull its AI large language model Llama from the European market, citing “the unpredictable nature of the European regulatory environment”.

European Union regulations require companies to give customers the opportunity to opt out when using their personal data for developing their AI platforms – a rule that X contends it complies with.

“Unlike the rest of the AI industry, we chose to provide a simple control to all X users allowing them to decide if their public posts and engagement activity could be used to improve the models used by Grok,” the platform said in a statement.