Meta Revises October 30 Terms as Experts Say AI Could Still Scrape News Sites
Updated
Updated · The Verge · Oct 22
Meta Revises October 30 Terms as Experts Say AI Could Still Scrape News Sites
3 articles · Updated · The Verge · Oct 22
Summary
Meta removed wording from business-account terms that explicitly said it could use associated website content to “train” its products, but legal experts say the revision still leaves room to scrape publishers’ sites.
James Grimmelmann and Matt Topic said phrases allowing Meta to use content to “develop” products and for services “associated with” a business account remain broad enough to cover AI training.
The terms had drawn fierce publisher backlash because experts warned Meta could argue its contract language overrides robots.txt instructions that traditionally limit web crawling.
Meta says the update does not create new scraping rights, is not aimed at news sites, and still lets content owners use robots.txt to signal their preferences before the October 30 effective date.