Publishers urge EU to halt Meta’s changes as threat to journalism

The German Federal Association of Digital Publishers and Newspaper Publishers (BDZV) and the Media Association of the Free Press (MVFP) have called on the European Commission to examine and, for now, halt a planned change to the terms of service of Facebook parent company Meta.

The change is due to take effect on Oct 30 for business customers, reported German news agency dpa.

In a joint statement issued on Tuesday, the associations said that Meta wants to be able to automatically search, store and analyse not only content that publishers post on Facebook or Instagram, but also the websites linked to those posts. This would affect articles, archives, images and videos, they said.

For private users of Facebook and Instagram, essentially nothing changes in everyday use on Oct 30. The update focuses on business accounts, advertising and the collection of web content.

Publishers fear that Meta could use extensive journalistic content in this way for its own commercial products, without additional consent or payment. The associations believe that such content could also still be used in connection with artificial intelligence.

Meta had revised the controversial terms following criticism. The associations, however, do not consider the changes sufficient.

They see a possible breach of the European Digital Markets Act (DMA), which is designed to limit the market power of large digital companies. The European Commission must intervene before the automated capture of content could create irreversible facts, they said.