Meta's new commercial terms may allow it to scrape news website content for free to train AI
Meta's new commercial terms, effective October 30, appear to allow it to scrape and use content from websites "associated" with platform merchants to develop, improve, research, and train AI products, including the websites of online publishers. Nieman Lab noted that these terms may allow Meta to bypass licensing agreements and directly use content published by publishers to train models; merchants who do not agree to the new terms may have all commercial-use access suspended. Meta has previously reached AI licensing agreements with CNN, Fox News, USA Today, and others, and last month also launched the Meta One subscription, requiring merchants and creators to pay in order to include links in posts and reels.
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Meta's new commercial terms tie content scraping to AI training permissions, allowing readers to judge the authorization situation of news publishers accordingly.
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Meta’s new terms appear to give it permission to crawl and scrape websites “associated” with the businesses that use its platforms — including online publishers, according to a report from Nieman Lab . The new terms , which go into effect on October 30th, say Meta can use this outside content to “develop, improve, research,” and “train” its AI products.
The new policy applies to business accounts that promote their content across Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger. As pointed out by Nieman Lab , these terms seem to allow Meta to bypass a licensing agreement and train its AI models on content posted by online publishers. Meta has followed OpenAI in striking AI licensing deals with CNN , Fox News, USA Today , and People Inc., but these terms could give the company access to a much broader swath of content:
Businesses that don’t agree to Meta’s new policies “may stop all access or use of our Products for business or commercial purposes,” the terms say. Last month, Meta launched a new Meta One subscription that requires businesses and creators to pay to include links in posts and reels. “Put another way, Meta has begun charging users to post links to the same content that it will be permitted to crawl for free,” Nieman Lab says.
Meta didn’t immediately respond to The Verge ’s request for comment.