After AI backlash, Meta removes the word train from its commercial terms

After facing AI-related backlash, Meta removed the word train from its commercial terms of service. The clause previously concerned scraping website content and drew opposition from the global news publishing industry. University of Wisconsin law professor Benjamin Sobel told Nieman Lab that Meta would be more helpful if it added a clause to its policy respecting robots.txt scraping directives, but compliance with robots.txt is voluntary, and non-legally binding preferences may still be ignored. UK News Media Association CEO Theo Bamber accused Meta of "shameless land grab," the European Publishers Council has asked the European Commission to intervene; US News/Media Alliance president Danielle Coffey called the clause "outrageous and possibly illegal" and called on regulators to stop it from taking effect on October 30.