Twitch has been criticised by users after it emerged the popular streaming platform allowed their content to be used to train Amazon's artificial intelligence (AI) models.
Amazon owns Twitch and a setting allowing the US tech giant to take data generated by creators and audiences to train AI is turned on by default.
Users can now opt out of that, Twitch said on Wednesday, but the announcement sparked a backlash with some users questioning why it was allowed in the first place.
Twitch's chief product officer Mike Minton, said it's "respecting" users by letting them opt out but on why data was collected by default, he admitted: "If it's opt-in, nobody would opt-in. That's the honest answer."
Users who remain opted in could have any of their channel content used for training, Minton said during a livestream, adding that the data collected will not be re-sold to other companies.
On the same livestream, Mary Kish, head of community at Twitch, took viewers through a tutorial on how to disable generative AI training through a user's channel settings.
Doing so will prevent Amazon from using streams, clips, images, chats and other channel content to train its generative AI models.
Data collection for AI training has become an industry standard, Kish said.
"We don't expect you to be happy or excited about this. I don't expect anyone to react to this favourably," she added.
The stream's chat column was flooded with hundreds of comments from users criticising the move.
One viewer wrote: "Nobody would opt in because nobody wants to feed AI with our creativity and content."
Another said Twitch had an "opportunity to set an industry standard" to push back against data collection for AI.
It is not clear when Amazon began collecting Twitch users' data to train its AI models.
Minton said during the stream that he did not know if users' 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."
Amazon, which bought Twitch for nearly $1bn (£740m) in 2014, runs a host of AI services and has heavily invested in the its development as it seeks to compete with Google, Meta and other technology giants.
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