Twitch faces backlash over Amazon training AI on its users' livestreams
Twitch's executives said users can opt out of AI training, which has become a common industry practice.
Twitch is facing criticism for Amazon's use of its users' livestreams to train artificial intelligence (AI) models. The streaming platform has now enabled users to prevent Amazon from utilizing their content for this purpose.
The U.S. company announced that users can opt out of a default setting that permits Amazon to use their streams, clips, images, chat logs, and other channel content. This announcement on Wednesday confirmed that the technology giant, which acquired Twitch in 2014, has been using the platform's content for AI training, leading to widespread user backlash.
Amazon operates numerous AI services and has significantly invested in their development to compete with other tech giants like Google and Meta. The BBC has sought comments from Amazon and additional information from Twitch.
Twitch is a prominent livestreaming platform, particularly popular among gamers and younger audiences, with its top content creators boasting tens of millions of followers.
Mike Minton, Twitch's chief product officer, stated during a platform stream that AI training data collection is enabled by default, similar to most content services. However, he emphasized that Twitch will "respect" users' preferences to opt out. When questioned about the default data collection, Minton candidly replied, "If it's opt-in, nobody would opt-in. That's the honest answer."
Minton clarified that users who remain opted in could have any of their channel content used for training, but assured that the collected data would not be resold to other companies.
During the same session, Mary Kish, Twitch's head of community, provided a tutorial on how to disable generative AI training through a user's channel settings. Kish noted that data collection for AI training has become an industry standard. She added, "We don't expect you to be happy or excited about this. I don't expect anyone to react to this favourably."
The stream's chat was inundated with hundreds of comments from users criticizing the decision. One viewer commented, "Nobody would opt in because nobody wants to feed AI with our creativity and content." Another suggested that Twitch had an "opportunity to set an industry standard" by resisting data collection for AI.
It remains unclear when Amazon began collecting Twitch users' data for AI model training. Minton stated during the stream that he was unaware if user data had already been scraped for training, adding that he was unsure what Amazon "has done in terms of model training and what they've used and not used."