Meta is updating its commercial terms of service, and legal experts say the change is bigger than it looks. Starting October 30, business accounts will have to let Meta train its AI not only on their social media posts but also on the content of websites linked to those accounts.
No way to opt out
The update does not offer an opt-out. The practical advice in the terms amounts to this: if you disagree, stop using Meta services. The change applies to every business account, as Nieman Lab reported on Thursday.
Who is hit hardest
News publishers stand to lose the most. Their articles could be worth millions in licensing fees if an AI company wanted to use them for training, and now Meta would get the right to crawl them as part of a standard agreement.
The legal angle
Publishers are currently fighting OpenAI over whether training on articles without a license counts as fair use. Meta's terms may make that question irrelevant for its own case, because the permission would come from the contract rather than from the courts. If you run a business page, check which sites are linked to it before October 30.