Digital artists and illustrators are abandoning Elon Musk’s blogging platform X (formerly Twitter) over the introduction of a new controversial image-editing feature powered by artificial intelligence (AI). According to reports, the creators claimed that the new tool could be used to modify others’ works without their consent.
One such popular creator championing the boycott is Mu-jik Park, the renowned South Korean artist known by the pen name Boichi. Boichi is the creator of the hit manga series Dr Stone and Sun-Ken Rock.
“OH, WELL NOW YOU’VE GONE TOO FAR!!!”
- “Artists” who have been willingly playing in the unapologetic hate clubhouse for years after the owner nazi saluted twice at the American nazi party rally 2.0
who tf still uses Xitter…
I literally don’t know a single person from real life that uses it.
Something like 173 million users.
minus about 90million bots. then u left with about 80million boomers
Millions and millions of shitty people.
new tool could be used to modify others’ works without their consent.
This specific part is kinda stupid.
Nothing was ever preventing anyone from modifying an artists work. Its incredibly common. No one needs consent to modify anything.
To distrubute something that isn’t yours that doesn’t fall under fair use, absolutely. But modifying without consent is a joke.
Modifying without consent
May I introduce to you, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
May I introduce you to Fair Use Doctrine.
I think all the uproar is about new Grok functions that allow you to edit with AI and repost (aka distribute) images directly from within Xitter (I’m not sure that this is the case but I’m definitely not going to log in that thing to verify that).
I wasn’t going to log in to verify either lol.
Even if that’s the case, it will come down to fair use policy which will allow quite a lot.
If the specific instance of sharing isn’t fair use and Twitter allows it, then sue them, someone will. Reddit for example though is just littered with modified images and they’ve been fine. Same with Lemmy.
Edit: If someone starts trying to make money off modified images via Grok, then that becomes a much easier case to win.
Many artists explicitly state no repost without their permissio, requiring proper credits and such. It IS a dick move to AIgen-fed edits while directly interacting author’s post; that makes people using the AI feature violating author’s will knowingly.
In reality, people don’t read artists’ comment or bio, when “single button to AIgen and use the art as prompt” exists. It’s basically X greenlit anyone to do so against artists’ will, and fair use can argue the use of art but never force artists to stay in a platform. That’s what’s happening. They may be overstayed on a horrible platform blinded by clout they can get there but that is a different story.
“The Nazis were inconvenient, but the use of GenAI that you find everywhere else is a bridge too far!!”
Generally in Japan they don’t see much of Elon’s “prowesses”, so I can kinda understand why artists like him might not have caught wind of the Nazi direction the platform has taken until it actually hit them.
And yes, Ignorantia non excusat, but it’s still something, at least.
For anyone wondering, “Ignorantia non excusat” is Latin, and it means “I speak Latin, and you don’t. Suck my balls.”
Yeah, I’m not going to defend training AI with copyrighted works… But I’m not going to waste energy siding with anyone who was okay with X. If you stayed in X, you’vr made your own bed. Now don’t cry because the owner is an AI-pandering nazi, we all knew that already.
It always bothered me how so many Twitter users in Japan just kept using Xitter after everything Musk has done to it, like they’re not even aware. I think the language barrier has been filtering some of it out until now.
But,
I am not afraid of AI; I believe in its future and potential. However, I cannot accept my work being used, learned from, or exploited without my consent.
Boichi, that’s what’s been happening with AI to everybody’s art this entire time!
leaving x or insta at this point means youre very… very late to the party.
Debian cut ties in January, so if you quit after that, you’re officially slower to change than Debian.
That’s one of the rarest and finest insults I’ve ever seen
It means you’re ignorant or morally bankrupt, or at least flexible…
Better late than never
- Everyone * should be abandoning twitter. Well, I guess the nazis can stay, it makes it easier to keep an eye on them.
Here, take this, it is dangerous to go alone
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Ugh, I’m so tired of this. I never had twitter in the first place, but I did used to have Instagram and I loved it for all the artists I’d follow on there. But I dropped that a year or two ago (officially deleted my accounts 😤) and just stuck with Tumblr ever since. But so many of my favorite former fanartists just REFUSE to let either service go, despite them very openly stating their new AI policies or worsening ToS policies.
I know Bluesky will turn out the same way as the others, but I’ve been trying to encourage artists to move to BS and use bridgy fed so I can still see them on Mastodon. Like you’d literally get the visibility of TWO platforms by using bridgy fed rather than sticking with just Insta or just Twitter. And yes, Instagram and Twitter have bigger numbers than BS or the Fediverse, but one day the AI issues will grow too big and you’ll lose those numbers anyway when you leave the platform. Plus how many of those numbers are bots anyway?
But it just sucks man. I only have Tumblr and the occasional visit to Pixiv as my source of fanart. Mastodon and Pixelfed are just lacking, or make it very hard to find the artists I’m looking for (and I literally joined Pixelfed.art!). I’ve tried following hashtags but it’s a little dry…
Absolute facts. Also it’s one thing when it’s fanartists which just do that as a past time, but actual artists should have a dedicated team and it really shouldn’t be hard to crosspost on multiple platforms, should it…?
It’s just free visibility that they’re ignoring, definitely a huge head scratcher.
actual artists should have a dedicated team
now thats some rich ass gatekeeping. AcTuAL arTISts sHOuld have dedicateD TeaMs? Get a clue drawers, painters, guitar players, singers, sculptors, etc. etc. who DON’T have a dedicated team to run your socials.
“Actual artists” as opposed to “fanartists”, in the sense of “people who are under contract and are hired to do art as a job”.
Of course I’m not saying people who don’t have a team aren’t “real artists”, it was just a way to differentiate fanartists from people like Boichi, I didn’t mean to sound gatekeeping.
Fair enough but still - Actual artists are not always under contract and hired to do art as a job. Many many amazing artists get little or no compensation for their efforts.
I know, I just couldn’t find a better term to distinguish the two. I’m sorry if that sounded diminishing to them, it was definitely not my intention.
Yes, unfortunately Boichi is leaving… for Instagram.
But hopefully this is at least a wake-up call for some artists that they should really consider leaving for platforms with “less malicious intentions”. Maybe one day someone as big as him will decide to go fediverse, we can only hope.
Swapping one boot for another…
If they’re leaving X now, they’ll probably be back. Everyone who actually wanted to leave on moral grounds probably left at least a year ago.
People still on Twitter are actively, knowingly supporting Nazis and the destruction of society itself. Fuck any artist that still used that platform.
Honestly I’m floored this is what it takes for some people to leave X. 🤷🏼♂️
If the platform formerly known as Twitter didn’t die when it killed itself, it ain’t going to die from this. Zombie Twitter will live on.
Ehh… it’s one of the biggest platforms in Japan, and if it starts pissing off that fanbase it’s not a good look. Definitely won’t “die” either, but it might be a considerable hit (and hopefully boost for the Fediverse, or at least Bluesky).
A US judge can’t give you a free pass to use copyrighted work of non-US artists.
Foreign artist’s copyright are stolen all the time in the US. If it can’t be litigated or enforced, it doesn’t really exist.
