Meta removes language that raised scraping and AI training concerns

Meta removed language from its commercial terms of use that legal experts said could permit the company to scrape publisher websites and use their content to train artificial intelligence models.

The provision stated Meta could "use any content from [a business account's] domains, web pages, or URLs to provide, develop, improve, research, train, and maintain the integrity of" Meta products and services. Legal experts interviewed by Nieman Lab called this a "remarkable provision" that appeared to grant Meta broad scraping rights over any publisher operating a Meta business account.

Meta initially disputed the interpretation. A company spokesperson told The Verge that the updated terms did not reflect a change in how Meta crawls the web and that the language applied only to ads and business products, not general web scraping for AI training.

Following public scrutiny, Meta removed the provision entirely. The company stated: "We've heard you and want to clarify: the crawling terms we consolidated only applied to our ads and business products, and we've clarified that in the terms themselves. It does not change how Meta uses web crawlers."

The timing of the reversal reflects ongoing legal and reputational pressure on major AI companies. Meta faces multiple copyright infringement lawsuits from media organizations and authors over AI training practices. While Meta defeated a high-profile copyright case last year, other legal challenges continue to move through courts.

The incident illustrates the tension between how major platforms draft terms of service and how those terms are interpreted by legal experts and the public. The language Meta removed appeared to many legal observers as a unilateral grant of permission to use third-party content for AI development. Meta's subsequent clarification that the terms applied only to ads and business products, combined with its removal of the contested language, suggests the company determined the reputational or legal risk outweighed any operational benefit of keeping the provision in place.