Meta Delays Enforcement of New Business Terms to Nov. 20 After Publisher Backlash Over AI Scraping
Meta pushes back the effective date of its controversial business terms by three weeks following global publisher protests that the rules could allow scraping news sites for AI training.
U.S. tech giant Meta announced on October 23 that it is delaying the enforcement of its new business terms from the originally scheduled October 30 to November 20. The decision follows strong opposition from publishers worldwide who argued the terms could permit Meta to freely scrape news websites for artificial intelligence training.
According to a report by The Verge, Meta spokesperson Daniel Roberts stated in a comment that the delay is intended "to allow more time for us to explain to our partners and stakeholders what’s changing and what’s not." Although Meta previously updated the terms to remove specific language about "training" its products, legal experts argued this change was insufficient to rule out the possibility of using such material for AI development.
The backlash included a letter from the News/Media Alliance to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg demanding revisions to avoid "severe harm" to publishers. Additionally, digital advertisers and publishers in the European Union and the UK urged local regulators to intervene and force Meta to halt the implementation of the new terms. Roberts added that during the extension period, Meta would clarify how it uses web crawlers and reaffirm that content owners can still use robots.txt files to signal their preferences.