Publishing industry leaders in the UK have called on ministers to publicly support a crackdown on Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, over its plans to use publishers' content to train artificial intelligence models. The industry argues that the government has shown an "absence of any public support" for such actions.
In a letter addressed to Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds and Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy, publishing industry representatives expressed concerns that the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), the UK's competition watchdog, may be hindered in its investigation without explicit political backing. The letter, seen by the Daily Mail, suggests that the CMA needs government support to effectively protect firms and consumers.
This appeal comes amid growing concerns about Meta's proposed changes to its platform terms and conditions. Publishers fear these changes could grant the tech giant new rights to "scrape" content from any UK publisher using Meta platforms, potentially including content on publishers' own websites, without compensation. Such a move could significantly impact publishers financially by disrupting reader traffic to their sites.
Furthermore, the industry warns that this could lead to Meta's AI models being trained on less rigorously fact-checked information, as users would be deprived of content from verified news sources. The CMA is currently investigating these proposed changes.
While the CMA operates independently, the government provides it with strategic direction. The publishing industry is urging ministers to publicly endorse a stronger stance against Meta's practices. The letter emphasizes that such public backing would increase the likelihood of the CMA threatening Meta with sanctions to compel a withdrawal of its new terms.
Meta has denied that its planned changes are aimed at scraping news websites. A spokesperson for the culture department stated that the government recognizes the concerns of publishers and will "closely follow the CMA's engagement with Meta."