Meta Updates Terms After Outcry Over Content Scraping
Meta removed language from its terms of service that would have allowed content scraping, according to PR Daily. The change came after public outcry over the potential impact on news sites.
Original reporting · prdaily.com
Original: “Social media updates and new features to know this week”
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How this was written. The 5:45 wrote this article with a language model from PR Daily’s reporting (model: @cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast); it describes that reporting rather than adding to it. The original, linked above, is the full story.
Key points from PR Daily’s report
- Meta removed language from its terms of service that would have allowed content scraping after public outcry
- YouTube is offering creators a bonus payout for highly engaged Shorts in certain regions
- Reddit is expanding its ads business with new tools and options for advertisers, including a campaign planner and budget optimization
- Meta is updating its advertising capabilities to allow for more targeted ads
- YouTube is taking steps to protect channels that have been hacked or compromised
Meta has revised its terms of service after facing criticism over a proposed change that would have given the company the power to scrape content from websites connected to Meta accounts, PR Daily reported. The original change sparked concern among news sites and other content providers. Meta spokespeople said the crawling terms only applied to ads and business products. The company clarified that content owners can use robots.txt to signal their preferences.
According to Meta, the updates do not give the company new rights that supersede content owners' preferences, and the change is not about scraping news sites. Meta stated that it has heard the concerns and wants to clarify the terms. The company's statement was provided to The Verge. The removal of the offending language is seen as a response to public outcry over the potential impact on news sites.
YouTube is also making changes to its platform, offering creators in certain regions a bonus payout for highly engaged Shorts, according to PR Daily. This is an invite-only program with no application process, and qualified creators will be notified via email and a notification in YouTube Studio. The payout has two tiers, one based on upload activity and the other on engaged views.
In addition to the bonus payout, YouTube is taking steps to protect channels that have been hacked or compromised, PR Daily reported. If the platform detects unusual login activity, it will disable certain functions, including uploading videos and starting live streams. This is designed to prevent bad actors from hijacking an account and uploading unwanted content. Creators will see a banner in YouTube Studio explaining what happened and when account access may be restored.
Meta is also updating its advertising capabilities, allowing advertisers to choose specific demographic audiences for each ad creative, according to PR Daily. For example, advertisers can target women with ads for women's sweaters or target people over 50 with ads for retirement planning services. The Edits app is also offering a paid tier, called Edits Plus, which is still in limited testing and offers 200 GB of cloud storage.
Reddit is expanding its ads business with a suite of new tools and options for advertisers, PR Daily reported. The new tools include a campaign planner, engagement insights, and conversation summaries powered by AI. Advertisers can build media plans directly within Reddit and compare different plans. The campaign optimization score gives each campaign a score and offers suggestions for improvement.
Reddit's new tools also include campaign budget optimization, which allows advertisers to set budgets and bids for each campaign, according to PR Daily. The budgets and bids are then shifted based on ad performance. This is part of Reddit's efforts to build its ads business and provide more options for advertisers.
Questions and answers
What was the change to Meta's terms of service that sparked outcry?
The change would have given Meta the power to scrape content from websites connected to Meta accounts, including news sites.
How is YouTube protecting channels that have been hacked or compromised?
YouTube will disable certain functions, including uploading videos and starting live streams, if it detects unusual login activity, and creators will see a banner in YouTube Studio explaining what happened.
What are the new tools and options that Reddit is offering to advertisers?
Reddit is offering a campaign planner, engagement insights, conversation summaries powered by AI, and campaign budget optimization, among other tools.
