• by Colin Kirkland , 4 hours ago

In an effort to broaden its AI-powered news coverage across its family of social-media platforms, Meta has entered into an AI content partnership with conservative-leaning news organization Newsmax. 

Per the agreement, Meta will gain access to Newsmax’s archived and current library of digital news content, with the ability to train its AI-powered search and discovery tools while supporting user searches on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Meta AI.

The licensing agreement will also extend to Meta’s consumer devices, such as the Meta Quest headsets and the company’s AI-powered smart glasses, on which users will be able to find partnered news organizations’ stories and videos with AI-generated summaries.

Newsmax is the most recent news organization to sign an AI content partnership with Meta, joining News Corp. -- the parent company of Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal -- as well as Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns CNN; the Washington Examiner; Fox News Media; Daily Caller; USA Today Company; and People Inc. 

Since its real-time AI news initiative was first launched last year, Meta announcements have stated that the company is attempting to cover a mixture of news organizations possessing differing opinions on current affairs.

“We’re committed to making Meta AI more responsive, accurate, and balanced,” a Meta blog post stated in December. “Real-time events can be challenging for current AI systems to keep up with, but by integrating more and different types of news sources, our aim is to improve Meta AI’s ability to deliver timely and relevant content and information with a wide variety of viewpoints and content types.” 

Newsmax, as well as Fox Corp., was found to have defamed multiple voting equipment companies by spreading misinformation about President Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss. Newsmax agreed to pay $67 million and Fox was ordered to pay $787 million as a result -- the largest media settlement for defamation in U.S. history.