Canadian news publishers ask Meta to scrap its new AI terms

Meta's new business terms let it scrape content to train AI products. It removed the language and delayed the start date, first to Oct 30 and then to Nov 20.

“Every publicly-hosted Canadian word, song and image created is up for grabs if Meta doesn’t reverse course or if the government doesn’t intervene.”

— Paul Deegan, News Media Canada

Meta says the terms don't change how it uses web crawlers and that content owners can signal preferences with robots.txt. News Media Canada says blocking crawlers is not practical because ad crawlers need access.

News Media Canada has taken its concerns to the federal government and wants Ottawa to step in if Meta keeps the terms.