Meta Pauses AI Training Terms After Oslo Court Injunction

Meta has halted a planned update to its commercial terms of service that would have let it "use any content from such domains, web pages, or URLs to provide, develop, improve, research, train, and maintain the integrity of" its products. The clause was originally scheduled to take effect October 30, 2026, then pushed to November 20 after journalists and users objected. Now it is on hold with no new date, 404 Media reported.

In a statement, Meta said: "These updates are now paused and will not take effect on November 20, 2026. We are continuing to consult with stakeholders and will provide a further update when we have more to share."

Two jurisdictions had already moved against the rewrite. The Oslo District Court granted a temporary injunction suspending the terms, ruling that the legality of the new terms must be reviewed by a court before they can come into effect, following a case supported by the Norwegian Media Businesses' Association and 180 Norwegian media companies, according to Press Gazette. The UK Competition and Markets Authority opened its own investigation into the proposed changes.

The Norwegian coalition's complaint was concrete. The terms would have let Meta collect articles, photos and videos from publisher sites, including content behind a paywall, to develop AI products.

Before the full pause, Meta had already retreated once: removing "train" from the list of permitted uses and narrowing data applications to "advertising and business products" rather than all Meta services. Even the trimmed version did not clear the Oslo bench.