As Meta faces escalating backlash over its new terms for business, the company says it may push back its implementation as it plans “a full consultation” with publishers. But the company still hasn’t changed the language of the terms, which gives the company the authority to scrub the websites of businesses that use Facebook.
The controversial new terms were originally supposed to take effect on October 30, but Meta later delayed it to November 20 after an outcry. Now Meta spokesperson Andy Stone says the actual implementation may be pushed back once again, though Meta still lists November 20 on its website. “We care deeply about our partners and do not plan to make any policy changes without full consultation with industry groups and leaders,” Stone said in a post on X. “We are committed to getting this right, and as we expect this consultation could extend beyond November 20, in which case we will delay implementing the updated terms. Until then, our existing terms will remain in place.”
We’ve heard feedback from publishers about our proposed ads and business terms update. We care deeply about our partners and do not plan to make policy changes without full consultation with industry groups and leaders.
We are committed to getting this right, and as we expect this…
— Andy Stone (@andymstone) October 28, 2026
Stone’s statement comes as Meta has faced a growing backlash against the update, which gives it the right to scrub the websites of companies that use Facebook. The new terms state that Meta has the authority to “use automated software (such as webscrapers, bots, robots, spiders, crawlers, and user agents)” to access business websites “to provide, develop, improve, research, and maintain advertising and business products.”
Publishers have raised significant concerns, with one industry group describing the change as “outrageous and probably illegal”. A group of Norway-based outlets also filed a lawsuit against the company over the new terms. This week, California Senator Adam Schiff became the second lawmaker to call on Meta to roll back the changes.
“The breadth of these updated provisions is extraordinary,” he wrote in a letter to Mark Zuckerberg. “Meta claims an alarming openness to technical measures essential to circumventing the economic security of news organizations and subscription-based creators, including paywalls, registration gates and digital subscriber barriers.
But while Meta acknowledged the backlash, the company hasn’t made any significant changes to its terms since removing the word “train” and adding a reference to “ads and business products” earlier this month. Stone said the new terms are “not about screwing up news sites” and that the company respects content owners’ Robots.txt preferences.
But, as legal experts and publishing groups have pointed out, robots.txt preferences are not legally binding. And AI companies regularly ignore these instructions. Meta also makes no reference to robots.txt in its terms, as Schiff points out in his letter. “Without the insertion of specific language codifying the meta policy to respect robots.txt signals and the latest contractual terms, users lack any reliable means to protect their content,” the senator wrote.
Meta did not immediately respond to questions about whether it plans to make further changes to its terms.