Meta's New Commercial Terms Allow Scraping of News Sites, Legal Experts Say

Meta Grants Itself Scraping Rights in Updated Terms

Meta's new commercial terms, taking effect October 30, authorize the company to deploy automated software such as web scrapers, bots, robots, spiders, crawlers, and user agents to access, index, cache, and collect content from websites associated with business accounts on Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Virtually every news organization operates at least one such account, putting publishers squarely in scope.

Legal Experts See Broad AI Training Authority

Three legal experts who reviewed the terms at Nieman Lab's request said the language could be read as permission for Meta to train its AI products on scraped publisher content and even deploy that content in competition with publishers. James Grimmelmann, a professor of digital and information law at Cornell Law School, said the broadest interpretation would support a comprehensive archive of content that Meta could then serve directly or through AI. Matt Topic, a media and intellectual property attorney at Loevy & Loevy, called it a remarkable provision to bury in terms of service, noting it grants access to material worth many millions of dollars in a licensing market, and said publishers should assume it would be enforceable in court.

No Opt-Out and Test Credentials Draw Scrutiny

Business accounts have no opt-out before October 30. The update states that users who do not agree must stop all access or use of Meta's products for business or commercial purposes. The terms also let Meta create test credentials to scrape websites associated with business accounts, which Grimmelmann said could technically allow Meta to sign up as a fake user and bypass registration walls. Meta declined to answer questions about whether test credentials would bypass paywalls or other paid content.

A Meta public affairs spokesperson said the update consolidates crawling language previously scattered across different terms, will not change how Meta crawls publishers in the future, and that content owners can still manage how their content is accessed using robots.txt. The legal experts countered that the new language creates an opening for Meta to argue its commercial terms supersede other blocking instructions.

Publishers Weigh Their Options

Benjamin Sobel, a law professor at the University of Wisconsin, described the structure as akin to the antitrust concept of tying: using Meta business products requires accepting the scraping permissions. He compared it to Google's policies requiring publishers to consent to their content being used in AI Overviews and AI Mode to appear in traditional search results. The update follows the rollout of Meta One, a paid subscription service that restricts how many external links some accounts on Facebook and Instagram can post, which Press Gazette reported exempts some news publishers.

Stephen Beale, founder and editor of The Steampunk Explorer, learned of the change through his Meta Business Suite dashboard and is seriously considering shutting down his accounts before October 30. Separately, any AI training under the new terms still depends on unsettled legal questions about AI training and fair use, with several lawsuits between publishers and AI developers working through federal courts, including a May class-action by five large book publishers alleging Meta pirated millions of books to train its Llama models.

Sources: Nieman Lab · Techmeme