A recent partnership announcement between OpenAI and Stack Overflow has some members concerned that their data is being used without permission and, when trying to remove their posts, find their accounts are suspended.
The partnership was announced on Monday, with OpenAI getting access to Stack Overflow's API and feedback from developers and StackCommerce getting links in ChatGPT back to its source material and receiving assistance using OpenAI models as part of its new OverflowAI platform.
However, this partnership has worried some users on Stack Overflow [1, 2, 3] as they felt it was not right for OpenAI to profit from their content without permission.
After the announcement, some users wanted to delete their answers, including those with the most votes. However, StackCommerce does not generally allow the deletion of posts if the question has any answers.
Source: BleepingComputer
Epic Games UI designer Ben said he tried to edit his highest-rated answers and replace them with a message protesting the partnership with OpenAI.
"Stack Overflow does not let you delete questions that have accepted answers and many upvotes because it would remove knowledge from the community," Ben posted on Mastodon.
"So instead, I changed my highest-rated answers to a protest message. Within an hour, the mods had changed the questions back and suspended my account for seven days."
However, Ben shared an image of Stack Overflow restoring the edited posts to the original answer and then suspending his account.
Source: Ben
In an email shared by Ben, Stack Overflow moderators clarified that it does not allow users to remove posts because they hurt the community as a whole.
"You have recently removed or defaced content from your posts. Please note that once you post a question or answer to this site, those posts become part of the collective efforts of others who have also contributed to that content," Stack Exchange moderators wrote in an email to users deleting their posts.
"Posts that are potentially useful to others should not be removed except under extraordinary circumstances. Even if the post is no longer useful to the original author, that information is still beneficial to others who may run into similar problems in the future - this is the underlying philosophy of Stack Exchange."
Source: Ben
Article 17 of the GDPR rules gives users in the EU the 'right to be forgotten,' which means that websites must honor requests to remove users' personal data upon request, which could include forum posts and other user-generated content.
However, Article 17 (3) also states that a website has the right not to delete data if necessary for "exercising the right of freedom of expression and information."
Dutch IT lawyer Arnoud Engelfriet interprets this to mean that while personally identifiable information and profile data must be removed, as long as the post does not contain identifiable information, it can remain to prevent flow of a topic or question from being disrupted.
"However, specifically with forums you run into a problem that disrupts the discussion to some extent, or the archive is no longer complete," reads a post by Engelfriet.
"That is a problem, because in such situations freedom of expression is compromised. People should be able to read what has been said in the past, and privacy should not be allowed to rush through it like a 1984 bulldozer."
It remains unclear if Stack Overflow will change its decision and allow users to delete their answers in the future, but given its partnership with OpenAI, it seems unlikely.
BleepingComputer contacted Stack Overflow with questions about this deleting posts and their partnership with OpenAI but did not receive a response by the time of this publication.
Comments
ThomasMann - 1 month ago
What most users ignore is the simple fact, that when using the internet you are dealing with RIP-OFF companies. You need to be aware that you are totally powerless in dealing with these gangsters.
What everybody will have to learn is, that you limit the sites you use, and especially those that you have to register, and that you DONATE your data there too!
If you choose to ignore this fact, and most users are definetly too stupid to understand, YOU will have to live with the consequences.
It is called Artificial Intelligence, because it is made for those who lack the needed minimum of intelligence to understand what goes on. So, as usual, you will find out that once again YOU are the product that is being sold... stop complaining, YOU and no one else is at fault.!
jipjip - 1 month ago
I think users deleting posts only to not be used by openai must be banned.
tverweij - 1 month ago
Stack overflow is free.
As with all free sites, that means YOU are the product, NOT the customer.
And now, they sell the product (everything they know about you and your knowledge) to a customer, in this case OpenAI.
Same here; this site is free, so everything you do and say here can theoretical be misused.
pnda73 - 1 month ago
The notion that "you're the product" because a service is free holds little weight, considering there are more consumer-friendly methods to generate revenue, even on an annual basis.
Either way, Companies often exploit user data regardless of payment status. Even those willing to pay, in absence of a premium option to opt-out of data usage this should be criticized, akin to other unethical practices companies engage in.
tverweij - 1 month ago
Agreed.
But if you don't pay anything, you know for sure that you are the product.
But for both paid and unpaid: If you don't want your data to be used by certain companies, systems or governments, just don't post anything and browse using a VPN.
electrolite - 1 month ago
"The notion that "you're the product" because a service is free holds little weight, considering there are more consumer-friendly methods to generate revenue, even on an annual basis.
Either way, Companies often exploit user data regardless of payment status. Even those willing to pay, in absence of a premium option to opt-out of data usage this should be criticized, akin to other unethical practices companies engage in."
"more consumer-friendly methods of generating revenue"? And what might that be? In this day and age, it is a given that you are always the product, regardless of what you pay them for their products or services. You need special clauses in agreements explicitly stating that you are NOT the product and even that does not ensure your data is safe if the company is shady or they get hacked.
pnda73 - 1 month ago
My argument isn't based on legality, it's based on ethicality.
While as it stands companies are in full legal right to act like this, ethically it's wrong as there are other avenues of generating revenue as I've said. Stack Exchange sites even employ such methods, just google how it's profitable.
The point I'm making is just because legally it's good, doesn't mean we need to accept it.
Of course there are right and wrong ways of going about this, though I don't have an opinion on this yet, so technically my comment is slightly off topic.