Ten Norwegian media companies are asking a court to block Meta’s revised business terms until their legality is examined, escalating a dispute over the company’s potential access to publisher content.
Amedia said Oct. 27 that it and nine other groups had asked Oslo District Court for a temporary injunction. The named applicants are NRK, TV 2, Schibsted, Polaris, Aller, Dagens Næringsliv, Mentor Medier, NTB and Hordaland Folkeblad.
The terms apply to businesses with Facebook or Instagram business accounts, Amedia said. The media groups argue that the rules could give Meta access to articles, photographs and videos on publisher websites, including material behind paywalls.
The groups want Meta to commit in writing to honoring restrictions publishers signal through tools such as robots.txt. They also seek voluntary arrangements with individual media companies for journalism used in AI training or services, with payment included in those discussions. Amedia said the organizations want assurances that opting out would not lower a publisher’s visibility or traffic, or lead to its removal from Facebook or Instagram.
Guro Valland, editor-in-chief of Bergensavisen, said in a quote translated from Norwegian, “If Meta wants to use our journalism, it has to ask permission, make agreements and respect a no.”
Meta shifted the planned start date from Oct. 30 to Nov. 20. Reuters reported that a Meta spokesperson said the delay would give the company more time to explain the revisions. Reuters also reported Meta’s position that the terms did not override website owners’ preferences and that owners could signal those preferences through robots.txt.
Nieman Journalism Lab reported that a revision on Oct. 16 dropped the word “train” and described advertising and business products as uses for crawled content. The outlet also reported that the terms had no explicit robots.txt reference as of Oct. 23. The revised terms are scheduled to take effect Nov. 20.
