Meta has backed down, at least temporarily. According to Nieman Lab and The Next Web, the company delayed the effective date of its new terms for business accounts from October 30 to November 20, after mounting pressure from the global news industry. As we reported, legal experts warned the terms could let Meta scrape the websites of any business with an account on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp or Threads.
What changed and what didn't
On October 16 Meta removed the word "train" from the terms and limited the use of scraped content to "advertising and business products". But according to publishers, the new wording still leaves room for model training. Meta pledges to respect robots.txt files, in which sites mark what may not be crawled, but experts note these preferences aren't legally binding.
Pressure mounts
Advertising groups in Europe and the UK filed formal complaints asking regulators to halt the terms. California Senator Adam Schiff called them "a gross abuse of Meta's power" and demanded they be scrapped. According to one report, Meta will hold a "full consultation" with news industry leaders before implementing them, even if that requires another delay.
Why it matters to us
This directly affects every content site that uses Meta's tools, including Techwire. Meanwhile, Google is also under fire from publishers who complain its AI Mode is reducing traffic to sites. The fight over who pays for the content that trains AI is only beginning.
