Regulation and ethics · 2026-10-20

Meta Drops the Word “Train” From Its Terms After AI Backlash

Meta changed the wording in its commercial terms of use, removing the word “train,” but did not promise to respect robots.txt rules for collecting data for AI.

✨ What happened

Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, changed the text of its commercial terms of use. The word “train” was removed, which refers to training AI on data.

The change came after users and experts criticized the company for how it uses information for AI. According to the source, Meta changed its rules for collecting data for AI but did not add a commitment to respect the robots.txt file.

📌 What robots.txt is and why it matters

robots.txt is a short instruction file on a website that shows search and automated programs which pages they may visit and collect information from. Compliance is mostly voluntary, but for many site owners it is an important way to protect their content from automated collection.

So the absence of such a commitment raises a question: will a site owner have real control over how their text or images are used to train AI?

Sources: 🔗 Ars Technica — AI