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Ever since the start of the AI revolution, data scraping has become a pressing issue for platforms like Twitter, which hold vast amounts of valuable human conversation. Now, in a recent development, X Corp., the company owned by entrepreneur Elon Musk, has reportedly filed a lawsuit against four unidentified individuals for allegedly scraping user data from Twitter and is seeking over $1 million in damages.
What exactly is data scraping, and how does it affect Twitter?
Data scraping refers to the use of automated programs to gather data from publicly accessible websites, which can be utilized for various purposes, such as training artificial intelligence models or targeted online advertising.
According to the complaint, Twitter has accused four unknown identities of violating its terms of service by scraping user data from the platform. Additionally, the company argues that these unknown actors carried out the scraping through “automated requests” that flooded Twitter’s sign-up page, causing disruptions to the platform’s servers and affecting users’ experiences.
Although the report does mention the actors’ IP addresses, X Corp. claims that it has been unable to discover the identities of the four individuals responsible for the scraping activities. However, it is important to note that the legality of data scrapping is still a subject of debate in the US. This is because a ruling in 2022 by the U.S. Ninth Circuit of Appeals reaffirmed that scraping publicly accessible data does not violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, making it generally permissible.
Twitter’s response
To address this, Twitter implemented several measures, including a rate limit that imposed restrictions on the number of posts a user can view in a single day and restricting access to tweets for users who do not have a registered Twitter account.
“By unlawfully scraping data, Defendants flagrantly ignore not only X Corp.’s Terms of Service but also the privacy preferences of Twitter users,” the filing stated.
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