Meta Removes Language That May Have Allowed Scraping News Sites
Meta has removed language from its terms that experts believed allowed it to scrape content, including news sites, to train AI models. The clause previously stated Meta could use any content from domains or web pages for developing and improving its products. This change follows backlash over concerns the policy might override robots.txt blocking instructions used by websites. Meta's spokesperson clarified that there is no change in how it uses web crawlers but emphasized updates to terms were made based on feedback, applying only to ads and business products. The company reiterated that content owners can still use robots.txt files to control access preferences, denying any new rights or intent to scrape news sites. The update aims to address concerns from media outlets like Nieman Lab and legal experts such as James Grimmelmann at Cornell University.
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Topics: AI training Meta terms of service web scraping
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Part of the story Meta Removes Language That Raised Concerns About Web Scraping for AI Training (2 articles)