Facebook owner Meta under investigation by UK competition watchdog over plans to 'steal' publishers' content to train its AI models by imposing 'exploitative terms' on publishers

Facebook owner Meta is under investigation by the UK competition watchdog over plans to ‘steal’ publishers’ content to train its AI models, it emerged today.Amid a growing clamour for action, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it will probe whether Meta is imposing ‘exploitative terms’ and ‘abusing’ its market position in a bid to ‘scrape’ all content from publishers who use its platforms.It is feared this ‘stolen’ content would be used by the Silicon Valley giant to improve and power its lucrative AI products without paying a penny to publishers for it.The latest setback for the tech behemoth comes after a string of articles highlighting concerns about the proposed sweeping changes to its terms and conditions in this newspaper.Announcing the move amid mounting opposition today, CMA boss Sarah Cardell said: ‘Where a company holds a dominant position, it must not use that position to impose unfair terms.‘We’ve heard concerns from news publishers and other businesses and are acting swiftly to investigate whether Meta’s proposed changes may breach competition law...We will be working to reach a swift and satisfactory resolution to this case.’MPs, peers and campaigners welcomed the move.Tory peer Baroness Stowell said: ‘Meta cannot be allowed to exploit its dominant position to help itself to publishers’ content on its own terms, threatening the businesses that produce it. It is feared Meta's new proposed terms and conditions for using its platforms, such as Facebook and Instagram, give it new rights to 'scrape' all content from any UK publisher which uses them Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is also facing challenges to the new terms and conditions from publishers in the United States and Europe‘The CMA is right to intervene before the damage is done, and I welcome their swift and decisive action.‘Ensuring that the big tech giants compete fairly is exactly what the competition regulator should be doing.’Crossbench peer Baroness Kidron said: 'Meta’s new proposed terms are a land grab. It is an extraordinary abuse.'I welcome the CMA’s decision to open an investigation.'Former Tory tech minister Damian Collins said: ‘This is good news, as it shows that the CMA is ready and able to use its powers to challenge the abuse of market power by big tech companies like Meta.’Liberal Democrat MP Martin Wrigley, who sits on the Commons tech committee, said: ‘I’m delighted to see the CMA stepping up and facing down Meta despite their deep pockets.’Theo Bamber, boss of News Media Association, which represents most national, regional and local UK publishers, added: ‘Meta has given publishers an invidious choice of giving away their content for free to power its AI products or leaving a platform which millions of Britons use to get their news.‘We applaud the Competition and Markets Authority for taking action to protect British businesses and UK citizens’ access to high-quality news, and ministers must back them all the way.‘There is still a lot more work to do, but now is the time to start bringing the dominance of Big Tech to an end.’The growing row centres around Meta plans to change the terms and conditions for using its platforms, such as Facebook and Instagram.They appear to allow the tech giant to ‘scrape’ all content – without paying for it – from UK publishers that use the platforms, in order to train and improve its lucrative AI models and products. CMA boss Sarah Cardell said the watchdog was 'acting swiftly to investigate whether Meta’s proposed changes may breach competition law' Former Tory tech minister Damian Collins said the CMA's move was 'good news, as it shows that the CMA is ready and able to use its powers' This would include scraping content from non-Meta platforms, such as a publisher's own website.Critics have branded the new terms a ‘licence to steal’ as they would significantly water down – and potentially effectively abolish – protections publishers currently have to prevent content generated at huge cost from being lifted for free.The only way to completely avoid the changes would be to remove all accounts publishers have on Meta, which could be hugely financially damaging because they direct many readers to their websites.Meta has already been forced into delaying the introduction of the changes twice amid a growing backlash, including among publishers in Europe and the US.It originally intended to bring them in today, but delayed this until November 20. However, it said this week that the changes will likely now be delayed even further but has stopped short of setting a new date.It came after a court in Norway granted an injunction blocking Meta from introducing the changes there until judges have assessed their legality under competition law.The CMA probe will assess whether Meta – which also owns WhatsApp – holds a dominant position in a relevant market in the UK and whether the rules therefore breach the 1998 Competition Act.The watchdog stressed no assumptions should yet be made about whether competition law has been broken.But it said it had launched the probe as it was ‘concerned that Meta requiring news publishers and other content businesses to accept these terms could amount to an unlawful imposition of unfair trading conditions for thousands of UK businesses that rely on its services to reach customers and audiences.’It added that it will ‘examine whether Meta is abusing a dominant position by imposing exploitative terms on publishers and advertisers.’Meta insisted there were ‘no grounds for a competition investigation’.A spokesman added: ‘We've already committed not to change our terms without consulting publishers and other stakeholders.‘We welcome the opportunity to explain our approach to the CMA.’