If someone created an account back when AI was not a thing, they did NOT consent to their data being used for AI:
You cannot expect people to retroactively consent to a thing the existence of which they were not even aware of when they gave consent for some limited OTHER use.
Besides, it's just rude to do things for which there was no consent in general, no matter whether it is AI or anything else. No consent is no consent.
Further, you can't expect people who have a life in general to sit around all day just waiting to figure out where they have to delete accounts before they are misused.
Bazillions of websites nowadays want you to create an account, the normal behavior is that users just abandon accounts which they don't need anymore. Nobody has the time to delete all of them.
Your profile says you were "Senior Director of Monetization at Reddit". Considering all the outrage that company has caused with its users as well (redesign coughcough - just one example out of a truckload), and that the outrage-causing things largely seemed to be aimed at monetization, perhaps you should do some soul seeking to figure out whether your values are aligned with common societal morals.
Or in other words: How many more people will you make angry until you realize that maybe you're the baddie?
You can get mad all you want about people using “your data” that you posted on a public forum for whatever, doesn’t change the fact that you were dumb for thinking that your (not important, unique, or interesting) musings would be protected from people using them for whatever they want by posting it on the open internet, much less the website of the company you posted it on, get real.
The fact that you, Jamie Quint (look at his nickname, it says that), a previous Senior Director of Monetization at Reddit (see his profile), answer being accused of a poor moral compass by insulting the person who did (calling them "dumb", and trying to belittle everything they have to say as "not important, unique, or interesting") shows that you in fact have what you've been accused of - not only by me but by the community of reddit as a whole:
A poor, or even no, moral compass.
I'd lean as far out of the windows to speculate that what has often been said about people in positions of power applies here:
Those positions attract people who are completely unable to perceive empathy, and who act solely out of the desire for power and narcissism.
It's a shame, you cause so much harm for society - and you probably are unable to even perceive the harm you're causing because your brain is just not wired to be capable of empathy.
If you want to do the world a favor, go read up what a psychopath is, and by that I do NOT mean to insult you, but rather the actual medical term "psychopath".
Ask yourself whether it applies to you, and learn to protect society from yourself if it does.
You most likely consented to future changes to the ToS. It's kind of like their version of asking a Genie for infinite wishes as one of their three wishes.
I'd like someone to address this. Surely there's a limit. The statement "your account balance belongs to Twitter" is not against the law (like they can say the service is worth whatever amount of money and that you owe them this money), but you're not allowed to do that, because you're not allowed to retroactively change a contract's terms.
So, surely, you can't change ToS retroactively and expect that any of it applies?
Let's breakdown what tos is. It's the terms they are enforcing to provide you a service. They can refuse you service at any point for any reason. You can have your own terms of service that they must follow or you will refuse to do business with them.
By adding that they can train AI they are trying to get out of a future lawsuit that may happen if the courts require consent for training (current anyone can train on anything).
Your right to sue them for using the data they hold might be lost if you continue to use after the term change.
If they asked for your car and you refused they could stop service but they can't take your car.
They can't change payment terms from the past and sue for them. But if they change the tos to say it costs more now your next bill will go up. If they say they can use your data now that they hold and you have an active account they could take that as an acceptance that past/future can be used to train ai.
A better example might be a right given. For a year you could download photos for AI training. Today they forbid that for all future and past posted photos. Anything downloaded before the date can be legally used to train.
You cannot expect people to retroactively consent to a thing the existence of which they were not even aware of when they gave consent for some limited OTHER use.
Besides, it's just rude to do things for which there was no consent in general, no matter whether it is AI or anything else. No consent is no consent.
Further, you can't expect people who have a life in general to sit around all day just waiting to figure out where they have to delete accounts before they are misused.
Bazillions of websites nowadays want you to create an account, the normal behavior is that users just abandon accounts which they don't need anymore. Nobody has the time to delete all of them.
Your profile says you were "Senior Director of Monetization at Reddit". Considering all the outrage that company has caused with its users as well (redesign cough cough - just one example out of a truckload), and that the outrage-causing things largely seemed to be aimed at monetization, perhaps you should do some soul seeking to figure out whether your values are aligned with common societal morals.
Or in other words: How many more people will you make angry until you realize that maybe you're the baddie?