Meta’s updated commercial terms, scheduled to take effect October 30, authorize the company and entities acting on its behalf to use automated tools to access, index, cache, analyze, collect, retrieve, and crawl websites associated with business accounts on Meta platforms. The terms cover content on domains, pages, and URLs associated with a business’s products or services and say Meta may use collected content to provide, develop, improve, research, train, and maintain its products and services. Meta defines “AI at Meta” as one of those products elsewhere in its terms. The change affects businesses using accounts to manage Facebook pages, Messenger accounts, Instagram profiles, WhatsApp channels, advertising, marketing messages, groups, or Meta’s business dashboard. Legal experts who reviewed the language said it could enable Meta to argue that it has permission to scrape news publishers’ websites and train AI systems on the material. They also said the terms’ authorization to create “test credentials” could potentially let Meta access content behind registration walls, though Meta did not say whether such credentials would be used to bypass paywalls. Business users cannot opt out while retaining commercial access; the terms instruct users who disagree to stop using Meta products for business or commercial purposes. Meta said the language consolidates previously scattered crawling provisions, will not change its future crawling practices, and leaves content owners able to manage crawler access through robots.txt.

The supplied text characterizes Mark Zuckerberg as having had a bold plan to replace Meta staff with AI and says the plan imploded.

Meta faces a federal trial in Oakland, California, over allegations that Facebook and Instagram caused harm while the company hid evidence about the effects of its products. Oral arguments began on August 18, and the case could become a major legal confrontation for the social-media company. The trial follows whistle-blower allegations from the early 2020s concerning Meta’s handling of information about potential harms linked to its platforms. A film scheduled for release in early October, “The Social Reckoning”, will dramatise those whistle-blowers’ role and the allegations against the company. The film is a sequel to “The Social Network”, which portrayed Mark Zuckerberg’s founding of Facebook. Investors have not yet shown panic over the trial, according to the source text.

Opening arguments begin Tuesday in Oakland federal court in a 2023 case brought by a coalition of 29 state attorneys general accusing Meta of designing Facebook and Instagram to foster addictive behavior among children and teenagers. California Attorney General Rob Bonta is co-leading the case, with lawyers from California, Colorado, New Jersey and Kentucky arguing it. The states allege violations of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act and state consumer-protection laws; Meta says the claims are unsubstantiated and the requested financial penalties are disproportionate. The states seek nationwide injunctions that could require Meta to delete personal data collected from children under 13, along with algorithms and models trained on that data, if COPPA violations are found. For state-law violations, they seek removal of features including infinite scroll, autoplay, ephemeral content, beauty filters and engagement-optimized algorithms. Meta’s attorneys have put potential damages as high as $1.4 trillion, while state lawyers told Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers that about $200 billion is more likely. The trial follows a New Mexico ruling requiring Meta to pay nearly $1 billion and make child-safety changes, which Meta plans to appeal. New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez said a California judgment could be far larger. Meta derives 98% of its revenue from online advertising and is using ad revenue to fund AI investment projected to cost as much as $145 billion this year.

A German advocacy group has filed a criminal complaint against Meta regarding its AI glasses, citing concerns over privacy violations and data protection. The complaint alleges that the glasses could infringe on individuals' rights by capturing images and audio without consent.

Mark Zuckerberg criticizes competitors for using closed AI models and emphasizes Meta's commitment to open AI frameworks. Meta plans to focus on transparency and accessibility in its AI developments.

Guerrilla advertising in London features bus ads mocking Kylie Jenner's partnership with Meta for its new camera glasses. The protest group Everyone Hates Elon criticized the campaign, questioning the priorities of billionaires in funding such products instead of addressing significant issues like cancer cures.

Meta has removed a new AI image generation feature from Instagram that allowed users to create fake images using content from public-facing accounts. The feature was part of the Muse Image tool rollout, which was launched just days before its removal.

Mark Zuckerberg informed Meta staff that the development of AI agents has not progressed as quickly as anticipated. Earlier this year, Meta laid off around 8,000 employees and reassigned 7,000 to AI-focused groups, including Agent Transformation.

Meta's data center water discharges have been suspended due to contamination of Cheyenne's reclamation water supply with a rare bacterium. The Cheyenne Board of Public Utilities has revoked the discharge privileges for industrial wastewater from data center operations following the incident.