The story behind the cartoon
Britain's Competition and Markets Authority opened an investigation on Friday into whether Meta's commercial terms for publishers and advertisers breach competition law. The regulator said the terms could allow Meta to collect content from publishers' websites and use it to develop and provide its own products and services, including its AI features, without those businesses getting a choice on if or how their content is used.
Meta had planned to introduce the revised terms on October 30, then delayed them to November 20 after engagement with the CMA, and on October 28 paused the rollout entirely pending a consultation with publishers and other businesses. The complaints came from the News Media Association and the Movement for an Open Web. Meta said there were no grounds for an investigation and that it had committed not to change its terms without consulting publishers and other stakeholders.
The CMA said forcing publishers and other content businesses to accept such terms could amount to an unlawful imposition of unfair trading conditions for thousands of UK businesses that rely on Meta's services to reach customers and audiences. Under its Competition Act 1998 powers, the CMA will first assess whether Meta holds a dominant position in a relevant UK market, and if so whether the terms amount to an abuse of that position. No decision has yet been made on whether Meta broke the law. The CMA is separately seeking information about Meta's new Meta One business subscription, under which pages may have to pay to post external links.
The joke takes the terms literally: Meta does not ask the press for its content, it rolls up in a giant blue vacuum and inhales the whole newsstand, leaving the publisher clutching the last surviving copy while the cat supervises the robbery with total calm. Take it or leave it, but the vacuum is already running.
THE JOKE EXTRACTOR
THE CHIP SALESMAN BUYS IN
AI MADE SEVEN COMPANIES RICH. THE OTHER 493 GOT THE BILL.
THE WRONG DOOR.