Meta pledges to consult publishers before finalizing its new terms

Meta will complete “a full consultation” with news industry leaders before implementing its controversial new terms — even if it means another delay, an executive for the social media company announced today.

“We’ve heard publishers’ feedback on our proposed ads and business terms update. We care deeply about our partners and do not plan to make policy changes without a full consultation with industry groups and leaders,” vice president of communications Andy Stone tweeted. “We’re committed to getting this right, and as we expect this consultation could extend beyond November 20, in which case we’d delay implementation of the updated terms. Until then our existing terms remain in place.”

Meta did not answer Nieman Lab’s questions about which news industry groups and leaders Meta plans to consult.

The proposed terms have drawn criticism because they would permit broad scraping of websites “associated with” business accounts, and potentially allow Meta to use that scraped content to train its AI models, with no option to opt out. Last week, Meta announced it would push back implementation of its new terms to November 20 in order to “explain to our partners and stakeholders what’s changing and what’s not — including how Meta uses web crawlers and the fact that content owners will still be able to use robots.txt to signal preferences,” a Meta spokesperson told Nieman Lab. Meta had previously revised its new terms to remove the word “train.” No version of the terms has included language about respecting robots.txt preferences.

Shortly after Stone’s announcement, a Norwegian court blocked Meta’s terms from taking effect on November 20 until the court had assessed their legality, the country’s public broadcaster NRK reported.

The ruling comes one day after the Norwegian Media Businesses’ Association (MBL) filed the first known lawsuit filed against Meta over its commercial terms. MBL represents a coalition of major Norwegian news publishers, including the country’s largest newspaper groups and NRK.

“We are satisfied that the court has agreed with us that Meta holds a dominant position in the relevant market and that the new terms are unreasonable,” said Lene Eltvik Vindfeld, MBL’s board chair, in a news release. “We are also pleased that the court recognizes that the alternative is that media companies risk losing control over editorial content built up over many years.”

Since Nieman Lab first reported on the terms on October 15, publishers and politicians around the world have pushed back, filing complaints with national competition authorities, calling on the European Commission to investigate, and writing letters to Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

On October 21, the European Publishers Council signed onto a joint letter to the European Commission, asking the Commission to block the terms from taking effect. The letter claims that Meta’s terms violate the Digital Markets Act, a law passed in 2020 to curb the dominance of big tech companies and create fairer competition across the region.

EPC executive director Angela Mills Wade said on Wednesday that the organization has not heard from Meta about its letter or its concerns.

“We welcome Meta’s offer to consult publishers fully, and to delay implementation if necessary,” Mills Wade said in an email to Nieman Lab. “However, that consultation must lead to binding contractual safeguards…Using Meta’s services to reach audiences or advertise should not mean granting wider rights to exploit publishers’ journalism, whether collected from websites or uploaded to its platforms. Publishers must retain control over additional uses of their content, including for AI, and the ability to negotiate licenses and payment.”