Publishers urge EU to halt Meta’s changes as threat to journalism

The German Federal Association of Digital Publishers and Newspaper Publishers, along with the Media Association of the Free Press, have urged the European Commission to halt a proposed change to Meta's terms of service. The change is set to take effect on October 30 for business users. According to the associations, Meta seeks the ability to automatically sift through, store, and analyze not only content published by journalists on Facebook or Instagram, but also the linked websites.

This could encompass articles, archives, images, and videos. However, for regular users of Facebook and Instagram, no significant changes are anticipated upon the same date. The update pertains predominantly to business accounts, advertising, and the gathering of web content. Publishers are apprehensive that Meta might utilize extensive journalistic material for its own commercial ventures without prior consent or remuneration.

Furthermore, the content could potentially be repurposed in relation to artificial intelligence. The associations contend that even these revisions are insufficient, arguing that the changes may constitute a breach of the European Digital Markets Act, a regulation aimed at curbing the dominance of large digital corporations. The European Commission must act before the automatic content capture could result in irreversible consequences, the associations argued.