Stack Overflow bans users en masse for rebelling against OpenAI partnership — users banned for deleting answers to prevent them being used to train ChatGPT

misk@sopuli.xyz to Technology@lemmy.world – 1696 points –
Stack Overflow bans users en masse for rebelling against OpenAI partnership — users banned for deleting answers to prevent them being used to train ChatGPT
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They can. It's in the TOS when you make your account. They own everything you post to the site.

Well I suppose in that case, protesting via removal is fine IMO. I think the constructive, next-step would be to create a site where you, the user, own what you post. Does Reddit claim ownership over posts? I wonder what lemmy's "policies" are and if this would be a good grounds (here) to start building something better than what SO was doing.

A SO alternative cannot exist if a user who posted an answer owns it. That defeats the purpose of sharing your knowledge and answering questions as it would mean the person asking the question cannot use your answer.

A SO alternative cannot exist if a user who posted an answer owns it. That defeats the purpose of sharing your knowledge and answering questions as it would mean the person asking the question cannot use your answer.

Couldn't these owners dictate how their creations are used? If you don't own it, you don't even get a say.

That's the point of platforms like SO - you give away your knowledge, for free, for everyone, for any use case. If a user can restrict the use of their answers, then it makes no sense for SO to exist. It's like donating food to a food bank and saying that your food should only go to white people and not black people.

I'm not sure I agree with your example - it's more like giving the owners of the donation the ability to choose WHO they are donating to. That means choosing not to donate to companies that might take your food donation and sell it as damaged goods for example. I wouldn't want my donation to be used that way. Thats how I see it anyway