Meta drops the word "train" from its commercial TOS after AI backlash
Meta changes AI scraping policy but won’t add language respecting robots.txt.
Meta has removed the term "train" from its commercial terms of service (TOS) ahead of a rollout scheduled for October 30, attempting to alleviate concerns raised by critics. Legal experts had previously expressed apprehension that Meta's new TOS could grant the company permission to continuously harvest content from websites linked on business pages.
According to experts, this could enable Meta to evade substantial licensing fees that news organizations might otherwise owe, by compelling all business users to contribute significant amounts of AI training data merely for operating a business page.
Despite the criticism, Meta did not inform users about the changed language, reportedly fueling further confusion as the policy was set to take effect. A Meta spokesperson confirmed to Ars that the company had not notified users of the modifications, following the backlash. The spokesperson acknowledged Nieman Lab's initial report about the concerns but did not address the Lab's subsequent clarification, reiterating the experts' worries.
Written by urgent.news from Ars Technica Policy's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
This story
This is one outlet's version. Read the fullest account.
