CMDG Calls for Regulators to Halt Meta’s Abusive New Content Rule
“Regulators must establish clear, enforceable rules to prevent dominant platforms from unilaterally rewriting the terms of their relationships with publishers and other businesses.”
Center for Media and Digital Governance (CMDG) at Open Markets director Dr. Courtney Radsch released the following statement calling on regulators to take immediate action to stop Meta from exploiting publishers around the world:
“Meta is exploiting its enormous market power to force publishers into an impossible choice: surrender control over their content or risk losing access to platforms they depend on to reach their audiences. This is not a negotiation between equals. It is a dominant corporation using its gatekeeper position to dictate the terms under which journalism and other creative work can be used, including to develop AI products that may compete directly with the publishers who produced that content.
“This is but the latest example of how Meta has built a trillion-dollar business using willfully unfair, anticompetitive, deceptive, and unconscionable practices, terms used by judges who have found its practices unfair and illegal.
“Regulators in the United States, United Kingdom, and European Union must act before Meta's October 30 deadline. These new terms should be put on hold immediately while competition authorities investigate whether Meta is abusing its dominance to extract rights it could never secure in a fair marketplace.
“But stopping this policy is only the first step. Regulators must establish clear, enforceable rules to prevent dominant platforms from unilaterally rewriting the terms of their relationships with publishers and other businesses. Companies that control access to audiences cannot be allowed to use that power to seize control over the content those audiences come to see.
“If Meta gets away with this, every dominant technology company will have a blueprint for doing the same. Regulators have an opportunity to draw a line now, before the next generation of AI monopolies is built on the uncompensated work of journalists, publishers, and creators.”
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For more, read CMDG’s landmark report, "Same Gatekeepers, New Tollbooths: Mapping the AI Content Licensing Market"