Norwegian media sue Meta over plans to use their journalism for AI

Publishers say new terms for Facebook and Instagram business accounts could allow Meta to collect articles, images and videos from their websites without permission.

A coalition of Norwegian media organisations has launched legal action against Meta, arguing that the company’s new terms for business accounts could undermine publishers’ control over their own journalism and allow it to be used in AI products without their agreement.

According to the 10 media groups, the new terms would give Meta — which owns Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads — the right to collect their articles, photos and videos, including those behind a paywall, and use them to develop artificial intelligence products, among other things.

Meta quietly announced it was changing its Commercial Terms on 8 October, with plans to roll out on 30 October. However, the company postponed the roll-out after receiving widespread pushback from European publishers and antitrust authorities.

The launch is now set for 20 November, “to allow more time for us to explain to our partners and stakeholders what’s changing and what’s not”, said Meta.

Critics say news publishers are being forced into an “all-or-nothing” choice by the US tech giant: allow Meta to scrape their journalism, potentially for AI training, or lose their Facebook and Instagram presence entirely.

The Norwegian media groups’ legal challenge will test whether publishers can block the changes before they take effect.

“The fear is that the companies will use this power to secure rights over journalistic content,” the head of the Norwegian Media Businesses’ Association (MBL), Lene Eltvik Vindfeld, said in a statement.

“Meta uses media groups’ investments to develop artificial intelligence services that compete with them directly. This is both unacceptable and distorts competition,” she added.

According to the plaintiffs, Meta’s new terms of use would apply to all professional account holders — media outlets as well as companies and retailers — and would leave them no way to opt out other than deleting their accounts.

They said they had filed a request with the Oslo District Court for a provisional injunction against the entry into force of the terms of use, pending a ruling on the substance of the case.

The plaintiffs include public broadcaster NRK, media groups Schibsted, Amedia, Polaris and Aller, as well as Norwegian news agency NTB.

On 14 October, MBL and NRK had also threatened to sue Meta, accusing the American tech giant of profiting from fraudulent advertisements impersonating them in order to defraud internet users.

The Norwegian case reflects a broader dispute over the rights of publishers whose journalism appears on major tech and AI platforms.

Since May this year, more than 340 local and national news sites including the Guardian, the New York Times and USA Today have blocked internet archive crawler bots to prevent them from collecting data for training AI models.

And in June, France’s competition authority warned Meta that its approach to copyright talks with news outlets could “seriously harm” the press.

Source: www.euronews.com