Meta postpones updated business terms following publisher criticism
Meta has delayed the implementation of new business terms by three weeks following concerns that the policy would permit unauthorized AI training on publisher content.
Meta has shifted the implementation date for its updated business terms from October 30 to November 20. The delay follows vocal opposition from publishers who feared the new language would grant the company broad rights to scrape news websites for the purpose of training artificial intelligence models.
Company spokesperson Daniel Roberts stated that the additional time is intended to clarify the scope of the policy changes to partners and stakeholders. While the company maintains that the intent of the terms is not to expand scraping capabilities for AI development, critics argue that the previous wording remained ambiguous regarding intellectual property usage.
The dispute highlights the ongoing tension between social media platforms and news organizations regarding the utilization of proprietary content in generative AI development. As AI models require vast datasets, publishers have increasingly scrutinized terms of service updates for clauses that might facilitate data harvesting without licensing agreements.