Meta backtracks on AI training language after legal scrutiny

Meta has removed language from its commercial terms of service that suggested the company could scrape and repurpose content from any publisher's website for AI training. 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" its products. Legal experts flagged the clause as unusually broad, potentially giving Meta permission to harvest publisher content for its AI models without explicit consent. After the backlash, Meta issued a statement clarifying that the language only applied to ads and business products. "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 company said. The removal comes amid ongoing copyright litigation against AI companies, including Meta, over training data sourcing.