Europe’s biggest news publishers are asking regulators in the EU and UK to stop Meta from introducing new business terms that they fear could allow the company to copy content from their websites for use in AI products. The changes are due to take effect on 30 October.
The European Publishers Council (EPC) sent a letter on Monday to EU competition chief Teresa Ribera and tech chief Henna Virkkunen, asking them to suspend the changes and assess whether they comply with EU law, POLITICO reported.
The group includes Axel Springer, the German media company that owns POLITICO.
The dispute adds to Meta’s ongoing conflicts with European publishers over how it uses their content and whether it should pay for it.
Previous disputes have led to payment negotiations in France and a legal challenge in Italy.
A European Commission spokesperson told POLITICO that Brussels was aware of the changes and publishers’ complaints. The spokesperson said Meta must comply with EU rules, including the Digital Markets Act.
UK publishers are also pushing for action, telling the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) that Meta has so much influence over their businesses that they cannot realistically refuse its terms.
CMA chief executive Sarah Cardell told MPs on Tuesday that the regulator had asked Meta to explain the changes and planned to meet the company on Wednesday.
The new terms apply to businesses using Meta’s tools for Facebook pages, Instagram accounts and advertising. That could include newsrooms that use the platforms to reach readers or promote their work.
Nieman Lab first reported the changes on 15 October. Its analysis of the original wording suggested Meta could send automated bots to websites linked to business accounts and use the material to train its AI products.
The publication reported that the terms offered businesses no clear way to opt out.
Meta disputed that interpretation, and its communications chief, Andy Stone, called the report false on X and said the company had not changed how it uses web crawlers.
Meta said the update was intended to collect product information from shopping websites for advertising.
On Friday evening, Meta revised the wording of its commercial terms and removed the word “train”. The company said the rules applied only to its advertising and business tools.
“We’ve heard you and want to clarify,” a Meta spokesperson told POLITICO, adding that the changes were not intended to allow the scraping of news websites.
Publishers remain unconvinced. In its letter, the EPC argued that Meta’s verbal assurances were not enough because the revised terms did not provide a binding guarantee that publishers’ content would be protected.
“Meta’s supposed Friday night correction is a farce,” Jason Kint, chief executive of US publisher group Digital Content Next, told POLITICO.
German newspaper and magazine associations called for Brussels to block the changes while it investigates. They argued that once content has been copied into AI systems, it may be impossible to reverse the process.
“This is unscrupulous theft,” the associations said in a joint statement on Tuesday.