"Announced" may be too strong; the link is to an internal email leak discussing this possibility, but "Automattic may be experimenting with selling data to midjourney/openai" is still pretty close to "Automattic's selling user data". Hell, I can see the positive spin blog post announcing this: "They're also giving Automattic a bunch of free cycles on improving Askimet's spam/ham filters, in exchange for a look at every other comment anyone is sending through Askimet ever. We're aware this is a thorny ethical issue; click HERE for the archives of our mailing list dedicated to this project."
As for Palantir, my inner paranoid says that if the FBI/NSA/etc wants this data, they have some way of getting whether or not a deal with a public front like Palantir is involved.
In February of 2024, Automattic announced that it would begin selling user data from Tumblr and WordPress.com to Midjourney and OpenAI.[27]
27: https://www.404media.co/tumblr-and-wordpress-to-sell-users-d...
"Announced" may be too strong; the link is to an internal email leak discussing this possibility, but "Automattic may be experimenting with selling data to midjourney/openai" is still pretty close to "Automattic's selling user data". Hell, I can see the positive spin blog post announcing this: "They're also giving Automattic a bunch of free cycles on improving Askimet's spam/ham filters, in exchange for a look at every other comment anyone is sending through Askimet ever. We're aware this is a thorny ethical issue; click HERE for the archives of our mailing list dedicated to this project."
As for Palantir, my inner paranoid says that if the FBI/NSA/etc wants this data, they have some way of getting whether or not a deal with a public front like Palantir is involved.