Meta’s Updating its Terms of Service With Clarified Wording Around Misuse

Meta’s informing users of some minor updates to both its Terms of Service and Community Standards, with a new in-stream pop-up alerting users to the update.

The updated terms mostly relate to wording changes, with stronger language around platform misuse, and more direct explanations as to how you can use certain elements, and what you’re agreeing to in regards to personal data use.

First off, Meta’s updated its opening paragraph to basically explain that if you use its apps, you’re agreeing to these terms.

“These Terms therefore constitute an agreement between you and Meta Platforms, Inc. If you do not agree to these Terms, then do not access or use Facebook or the other products and services covered by these Terms.”

The wording here includes a sentence that’s currently buried further down in the terms, making it clear that by using its apps, you are indeed agreeing to these terms.

The update also includes more specific explanations around misuse of Meta’s apps, and the scraping of data from them.

“You may not access or collect data from our Products using automated means (without our prior permission) or attempt to access data you do not have permission to access, regardless of whether such automated access or collection is undertaken while logged-in to a Facebook account.”

That last sentence has been added, clarifying that you can’t use the fact that you were logged into Facebook as an excuse for data scraping. This distinction, between logged in and logged out access, has been used in the legal defense of some scraping cases.

There’s also a new explanation about circumventing Meta’s protection measures, and how that’s also a no-no.

Meta’s also included some specific qualifiers on avatar and AI use, based on its separate agreements for each:

“If you use Avatars, then the Avatar Terms also apply. If you use our AI products and features, the Meta AI Terms also apply. To the extent any supplemental terms conflict with these Terms, the supplemental terms shall govern to the extent of the conflict.“

As noted, the references to its separate Avatar and Meta AI terms here are new, ensuring that these documents, which already exist, are also specifically noted within the initial user agreement.

Meta’s Avatar and AI terms cover the use of your personal data inputs for these elements, including, say, selfie videos for avatar creation, or the sharing of your conversations with Meta’s AI tools with third parties.

Why would Meta need to share your AI chats? Well, it might need to pass on your query to Google or Bing to get search results from the web, though the terms also cover any internal reviews of your AI prompts and other usage.

So there’s a range of things that you’re agreeing to, which are not new, as such, but are now being more explicitly built into Meta’s usage agreements.  

On its Community Standards, Meta’s not actually updating the document, but it is merging its Community Standards that cover Facebook, Messenger, Instagram and Threads into one central location for easier access.

So if you see this new prompt, now you’ll know what it is you’re agreeing to.

Meta’s Community Standards will be merged as of November 12th, while the new Terms of Service go into effect from January 1st, 2025.