QuitGPT Campaign: Users Are Abandoning ChatGPT Due to OpenAI's Ties with ICE

In 2026, the global 'QuitGPT' campaign is consolidating public reaction to ethical concerns in the AI sector. The campaign calls on users to leave ChatGPT, citing OpenAI’s technical collaborations with the Donald Trump administration and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The #QuitGPT hashtag, which went viral on social media platforms—particularly Reddit, X (formerly Twitter), and Mastodon—has evolved into a broad public movement questioning how AI technologies can be employed in political and human rights contexts.

Core Allegations of the Campaign

The 'QuitGPT' movement argues that OpenAI has committed three major ethical violations: First, it is accused of providing AI support to facial recognition systems used by ICE in migrant detention centers between 2024 and 2025. Second, leaked internal documents allegedly reveal that OpenAI used user communication data for political targeting analyses aligned with the Trump administration’s data analysis needs. Third, despite its claim of being a 'neutral technology provider,' OpenAI’s secret protocols with government agencies are said to violate the principle of transparency.

OpenAI’s Official Statement

In its official statement regarding the campaign, OpenAI asserted, 'We have no formal partnerships with any political party or election campaign.' However, it confirmed that certain technical support projects with ICE were fully terminated in early 2026 and that no active collaborations currently exist. The company maintains that these projects were conducted solely for 'software testing and data security research' and claims it was unaware their outcomes were used in ways linked to human rights violations. This response has been deemed 'insufficient' by ethics experts. Dr. Elif Karabulut, Director of the Stanford University AI Ethics Center, stated, 'Responsibility does not end when a partnership ends; OpenAI must initiate an independent ethical review to assess the consequences of its past projects.'

Alternatives and User Responses

The campaign has received strong support, particularly from users aged 18–30, academics, and the open-source software community. As of 2026, over 1.2 million users under the #QuitGPT hashtag have migrated from ChatGPT to alternatives such as Mistral AI, Meta’s Llama 3, Alibaba’s GLM-5, and ethical AI models on Hugging Face. These transitions have gained particular momentum in Europe and Canada. AI ethics experts have interpreted this movement as the beginning of a 'user empowerment' era. Dr. Mustafa Yılmaz, Director of the Cambridge University Centre for Information Society Research, said, 'Users are now choosing technologies not only based on efficiency but also on ethical values. This may be the first major 'ethical boycott' in the AI industry.'

In response to these developments, OpenAI updated its ChatGPT terms of use in April 2026, explicitly prohibiting the use of user data for political analyses. However, campaign leaders believe these steps represent a 'temporary marketing strategy' and continue to demand greater transparency.