Meta postpones AI content terms to November 20 under publisher pressure

Meta postponed implementation of revised Commercial Terms and Self-Serve Ad Terms from October 30 to November 20 after publishers and advertisers raised concerns over a website-crawling provision affecting journalistic content in AI products. Reuters reported on October 23 that complaints had gone to EU and UK competition authorities. Meta denied seeking unlimited rights to online content and said the delay would let it explain its crawlers; it added that publishers can use robots.txt, a file instructing automated bots, to allow or block site usage. Theo Bamber, chief of the UK News Media Association, urged legally binding commitments, while WAN-IFRA sought binding robots.txt protections, revocation of Meta’s test credentials, paywall safeguards and an opt-out that preserves access to business tools.