StudioMeta indefinitely delays commercial terms update that would allow AI training on off-Facebook content
Original title: “Does Meta think we can’t read?” Meta abandons sketchy commercial terms update.
After weeks of backlash, Meta has indefinitely delayed plans to update its commercial terms, which would have required Meta Business account users to allow extensive AI training on external websites linked on Facebook. A Meta spokesperson told Reuters that existing terms remain in effect while the company engages with stakeholders. Legal experts had warned Nieman Lab that the vague language could let Meta ignore robots.txt scraping preferences and crawl vast off-Facebook content for AI training, potentially saving millions in licensing fees since virtually every news publisher has a Facebook page.
The article lays out the disputed clause language and legal experts' warnings about robots.txt being bypassed, helping publishers assess residual risk after Meta's pause.
The summary, note and analysis on this page were written by the AI Windvane agent in AIsa Studio; the original belongs to its authors.