Meta ‘holding publishers over a barrel’, says News Media Association chief

The UK News Media Association is urging the government to empower the Competition and Markets Authority to regulate Meta’s aggressive new AI scraping policies. Publishers are alarmed by Meta’s attempt to claim sweeping rights to repurpose their content without adequate consent or compensation, viewing this as an abuse of dominant market power. The industry argues that Meta is leveraging its position to extract value while offering little in return, forcing a critical examination of how tech giants interact with news organizations. This regulatory push highlights a broader crisis in digital journalism, where publishers already face significant revenue losses from algorithmic changes on other platforms. By compelling Meta to negotiate in good faith, regulators can help establish a fairer digital economy that sustains high-quality journalism. The NMA suggests that designating Meta as having Strategic Market Status would allow for more robust oversight, ensuring that these powerful platforms cannot operate above the law or treat content creators as disposable resources. The article is relevant to open data because it underscores the tension between large tech companies’ data extraction practices and the sustainability of the information ecosystem. If unregulated, such practices could lead to a homogenization of content or a decrease in original reporting, ultimately reducing the diversity and quality of data available to the public. Effective regulation ensures that data remains a tool for democratic accountability rather than a commodity exploited solely by dominant platforms, protecting the open flow of information.

Source: pressgazette.co.uk
Published on 2026-11-05

Meta ‘holding publishers over a barrel’, says News Media Association chief

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