Musk’s X poses “serious risk to Americans’ privacy,” advocates warn FTC
Musk’s X poses “serious risk to Americans’ privacy,” advocates warn FTC
马斯克旗下的 X 对“美国人的隐私构成严重风险”，倡导者警告联邦贸易委员会 (FTC)
Ahead of a July 2 deadline to submit public comments, advocates are warning the Federal Trade Commission that it must keep close watch over Elon Musk’s X and firmly reject a recent bid to end the agency’s ongoing audits of the platform’s data handling. 在 7 月 2 日提交公众意见的截止日期前，倡导者们警告联邦贸易委员会 (FTC)，必须对埃隆·马斯克 (Elon Musk) 旗下的 X 保持密切关注，并坚决拒绝其近期提出的终止该机构对平台数据处理进行持续审计的请求。
Last month, the FTC posted a notice explaining that X had argued that an FTC order was no longer necessary due to changes Musk had made to the platform. The initial order came as a penalty after the FTC found that a coding error had caused then-Twitter to improperly share users’ contact information for ad targeting that had initially been submitted for two-factor authentication. 上个月，FTC 发布公告称，X 辩称由于马斯克对平台所做的调整，FTC 的监管令已不再必要。最初的监管令是作为一种惩罚措施，此前 FTC 发现，由于编码错误，当时的 Twitter 将用户最初为双重身份验证提交的联系方式，不当用于广告定位。
Under the order, X is subjected to costly independent audits, and the FTC has authority to demand documents to ensure compliance with data privacy laws without taking additional legal action. According to X, the order imposes burdensome costs and should be terminated, partly because the company has completely rebranded since Musk took over Twitter. 根据该监管令，X 必须接受昂贵的独立审计，且 FTC 有权要求其提供文件以确保其遵守数据隐私法，而无需采取额外的法律行动。X 公司认为，该监管令带来了沉重的成本负担，应当予以终止，部分原因是自马斯克接管 Twitter 以来，公司已进行了彻底的品牌重塑。
X also argued that the order’s requirements were duplicative since X now faces similar obligations under the European Union’s General Data Privacy Regulation (GDPR). However, 15 privacy and consumer protection advocates—including Demand Progress, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, and the National Consumers League—co-signed a letter this week refuting all of X’s arguments. X 还辩称，由于目前在欧盟《通用数据保护条例》(GDPR) 下面临类似的义务，该监管令的要求属于重复监管。然而，包括 Demand Progress、电子前沿基金会 (EFF)、电子隐私信息中心 (EPIC) 和美国国家消费者联盟在内的 15 家隐私与消费者保护倡导组织本周联名签署了一封信，驳斥了 X 的所有论点。
They’re urging the FTC to “unequivocally reject X Corp.’s brazen attempt to escape accountability at the expense of the American people.” “X Corp.’s petition fails to clear the demanding legal standard necessary to grant the extraordinary action the corporation is requesting,” the letter said. “To the contrary, X Corp. and its current leadership present a serious risk to Americans’ privacy and data security, demonstrating the need for continued” FTC oversight. 他们敦促 FTC “明确拒绝 X 公司以牺牲美国人民利益为代价逃避问责的无耻企图”。信中写道：“X 公司的请愿未能达到授予其所请求的特殊行动所需的严苛法律标准。相反，X 公司及其现任领导层对美国人的隐私和数据安全构成了严重风险，这证明了 FTC 继续进行监管的必要性。”
X’s AI training and tools raise red flags
X 的 AI 训练与工具引发警示
Musk’s big argument seems to be that since he’s rebranded Twitter as X, then folded X into SpaceX, that the old Twitter business has been transformed and there is no longer a risk of X’s improper data handling. However, advocates argued that Musk’s changes to X have only raised additional concerns about the platform’s data handling that should heighten the FTC’s monitoring and are not a cause to terminate it. 马斯克的主要论点似乎是：既然他已将 Twitter 更名为 X，随后又将 X 并入 SpaceX，那么旧的 Twitter 业务已经转型，X 不再存在数据处理不当的风险。然而，倡导者们认为，马斯克对 X 的调整反而引发了更多关于平台数据处理的担忧，这应当加强而非终止 FTC 的监管。
Among top concerns, they cited global backlash to Grok, which triggered a lawsuit from three girls who accused X of allowing the chatbot to generate child sex abuse materials (CSAM) and other non-consensual intimate images (NCII). And just last year, “2.8 billion records leaked from the platform,” advocates noted, while Musk was busy managing DOGE efforts to extract “sensitive information” about millions of Americans. 在最受关注的问题中，他们提到了全球对 Grok 的强烈抵制，这引发了三名女孩的诉讼，她们指控 X 允许该聊天机器人生成儿童性虐待材料 (CSAM) 和其他非自愿亲密图像 (NCII)。倡导者们还指出，就在去年，“该平台泄露了 28 亿条记录”，而当时马斯克正忙于管理 DOGE（政府效率部）以提取数百万美国人的“敏感信息”。
They also pointed out that the FTC had already found that Musk “had directed employees to take actions that would have violated” the order, while seeking to give journalists unbridled access to internal data to investigate the so-called “Twitter Files.” 他们还指出，FTC 此前已发现马斯克“曾指示员工采取违反”监管令的行动，同时试图让记者无限制地访问内部数据，以调查所谓的“推特文件”(Twitter Files)。
Further, any questions of how much control Musk wants users to have over their data can be answered by X’s controversial decision to collect “hundreds of millions of posts on the X platform” for AI training “without meaningful or explicit user consent,” advocates said. Rather than seek user consent, X merely updated its terms, advocates said, seemingly banking its AI business on users not reading about updates. 此外，倡导者们表示，关于马斯克希望用户对其数据拥有多少控制权的问题，X 公司在“未经用户明确同意”的情况下，收集“X 平台上的数亿条帖子”用于 AI 训练的争议性决定，已经给出了答案。倡导者们指出，X 公司并没有寻求用户同意，仅仅是更新了条款，似乎是寄希望于用户不会去阅读这些更新。
According to Cambridge Analytica, “when Musk changed X’s rules to allow AI training on user-generated content, he didn’t invent a new business model. He industrialized the surveillance capitalism business model Cambridge Analytica pioneered: behavioral data at massive scale enables population-level personality modeling.” 据剑桥分析公司 (Cambridge Analytica) 称：“当马斯克修改 X 的规则以允许利用用户生成的内容进行 AI 训练时，他并没有发明新的商业模式。他将剑桥分析公司开创的监控资本主义商业模式工业化了：大规模的行为数据实现了群体层面的个性建模。”
Supposedly, Musk’s X business model training Grok on public posts is “identical” to the business model behind one of the biggest data scandals in history, Cambridge Analytica wrote. X’s AI works to “extract maximum behavioral data, build prediction models, sell persuasion capability. Musk just replaced Facebook’s advertising-to-third-parties model with direct AI-deployment-to-Musk-aligned-entities,” their post said. 剑桥分析公司写道，马斯克的 X 利用公开帖子训练 Grok 的商业模式，与历史上最大的数据丑闻背后的商业模式“如出一辙”。他们的文章称，X 的 AI 旨在“提取最大化的行为数据，构建预测模型，并出售说服能力。马斯克只是用直接向马斯克阵营实体部署 AI 的方式，取代了 Facebook 向第三方投放广告的模式。”
Opt-out methods are available but “practically invisible,” Cambridge Analytica noted, citing research finding that “73 percent of X users were unaware their tweets trained Grok.” Cambridge Analytica suggested that many users would likely be creeped out to realize that deleting X posts doesn’t delete the behavioral signal to the AI model. That means the algorithm is likely to continue targeting content at users based on information the user chose to remove. 剑桥分析公司指出，虽然有退出机制，但“实际上几乎不可见”，并引用研究结果称“73% 的 X 用户不知道他们的推文被用于训练 Grok”。剑桥分析公司认为，许多用户如果意识到删除 X 帖子并不会删除 AI 模型中的行为信号，可能会感到毛骨悚然。这意味着算法很可能会继续根据用户选择删除的信息向其推送内容。
As Cambridge Analytica sees it, the X platform’s chatbot Grok represents a “failure” that proves that “consent frameworks designed for individual users” following the Facebook scandal “don’t prevent industrial-scale behavioral exploitation.” “Grok shows that the model survived intact—it just moved from Facebook’s API to X’s native AI infrastructure,” their post said. “The technology improved, the regulation stayed static, and the surveillance deepened beyond what Cambridge Analytica achieved.” 在剑桥分析公司看来，X 平台的聊天机器人 Grok 代表了一种“失败”，证明了 Facebook 丑闻后“为个人用户设计的同意框架无法阻止工业规模的行为剥削”。他们的文章称：“Grok 表明该模式完好无损地存活了下来——它只是从 Facebook 的 API 转移到了 X 的原生 AI 基础设施中。技术进步了，监管却停滞不前，监控程度甚至超过了剑桥分析公司当年的水平。”
Other platforms like TikTok and Instagram similarly borrow the wrong lessons from the scandal, Cambridge Analytica said. But “Musk’s iteration is distinctive only in its transparency about extraction scope.” X is especially bad, Cambridge Analytica explained, because: “X explicitly reserves the right to train AI on your complete behavioral history. Other platforms perform equivalent extraction while maintaining ambiguity in their terms of service. X’s brazenness—Musk announcing Grok’s capabilities without pretense of user benefit—might paradoxically prevent effective regulation by making the surveillance mechanism obvious rather than hidden.” 剑桥分析公司表示，TikTok 和 Instagram 等其他平台也从该丑闻中汲取了错误的教训。但“马斯克的版本独特之处仅在于其对提取范围的透明度。”剑桥分析公司解释说，X 的情况尤为糟糕，因为：“X 明确保留了利用你的完整行为历史来训练 AI 的权利。其他平台在进行同等提取时，会在服务条款中保持模糊性。X 的无耻之处在于——马斯克在宣布 Grok 的功能时，甚至不假装是为了用户利益——这反而可能通过使监控机制变得显而易见而非隐蔽，从而阻碍了有效的监管。”
Advocates warned the FTC that there’s no reason to give away the agency’s powers to sanction. 倡导者们警告 FTC，没有任何理由放弃该机构的制裁权力。