The terms - set to come into effect on 30 October - would force publishers to permit unrestricted scraping of their websites to power its AI products, says the News Media Association.
UK local news publishers would be hit hardest by the terms as a significant proportion of their referral traffic comes from Facebook, the NMA said, with local titles deriving up to a third of their traffic from Facebook. Business tools on Facebook are used extensively by both local and national publishers.
NMA chief executive Theo Bamber said: "Meta's bid to force publishers to allow unrestricted scraping of their websites to power its AI products is an outrageous assault on journalism.
“The changes would hit UK local publishers hardest as substantial amounts of their referral traffic comes from Facebook. It is vital that publishers have a strong presence there to combat the mis and dis information which plagues Facebook.
"Parliament placed the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act on the statute books to empower the CMA to prevent exactly this kind of cynical and anticompetitive tech platform bullying of UK businesses.
"The regulator must now use these tools as a matter of urgency."
In a formal submission to the CMA, the NMA said Meta’s terms mirror the conduct the CMA addressed in Google Search earlier this year when it established that a platform publishers rely on may not make use of their content for AI the price of access. Until then, publishers could only keep their content out of Google’s AI features by leaving Search altogether.
The NMA has asked the CMA to secure a pause on the terms while the regulator negotiates voluntary commitments with Meta. These should ensure that the price of having a business account on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Messenger or WhatsApp is not access to publishers’ content.
The NMA said the case was a test of whether the CMA’s participative approach to the new digital markets regime works. The CMA has already used voluntary commitments without a Strategic Market Status designation, accepting commitments from Microsoft and AWS on cloud services. To give itself leverage in negotiations, the regulator must make clear that Meta would be the prime candidate for the next Strategic Market Status designation if it does not agree to change its terms.
The issue was raised by Baroness Fleet at the House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee on Tuesday this week, where CMA chief executive Sarah Cardell said Meta was a candidate for the next designation.
A clause buried in Meta’s new terms for businesses states that every business account on Meta-owned Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Messenger and WhatsApp will be taken to authorise Meta to crawl every domain “associated with” the business and any publisher URL shared by any user. The content it scrapes will be used to “develop” its “advertising and business products.” Meta’s business products include generative AI.
Addendum
Reacting to the news that Meta has delayed its new Commercial Terms from 30 October to 20 November, News Media Association chief executive Theo Bamber has said: “This delay is welcome, but it is a pause, not a solution. As things stand, Meta will still use its dominance to force publishers into an impossible choice: let Meta scrape their websites or lose access to audiences on Facebook.
“We welcome the Competition and Markets Authority’s swift engagement on this issue. The regulator must now secure clear, public commitments from Meta to abandon the offending elements of the new Terms before they take effect. If Meta refuses, the CMA must stand ready to begin Strategic Market Status designation, with the binding conduct requirements that follow, and regulators worldwide should be ready to leverage their formal powers. Meta must not be allowed to override robots.txt and help itself to publishers’ content at the price of reaching their own readers.”
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