Meta unveiled its latest initiative today to address mounting criticism over its use of copyrighted books to train AI models: offering authors a single complimentary Facebook post boost for each novel the company processes through its machine learning systems.
"We believe this represents fair market value for the computational digestion of an author's complete creative output," said Meta spokesperson Rachel Thompson at Thursday's press conference. "Authors can use this boost to promote their next book, which we will also train our AI on."
The program, dubbed "Boost Your Books," allows writers to amplify one Facebook post to reach up to 1,000 additional users within their geographic region, excluding major metropolitan areas and any posts made during "peak reading hours" (defined by Meta as 6am to 11pm). Posts containing external links, images, or text exceeding 50 words are ineligible for the promotion. Authors who exceed engagement metrics will be charged a "small algorithmic adjustment fee" of $49.99 per additional like.
Before receiving their boost, authors must pass a Meta AI verification check to prove they wrote their own books. The system has already flagged several Shakespeare plays as "suspiciously similar to existing internet content."
The compensation package includes a digital certificate of participation in Meta's AI training program, though the company notes this certificate was generated by an AI trained on illegally downloaded diplomas. Several authors reported receiving AI-generated rejection letters instead.
Each boosted post requires authors to accept three AI-generated "engagement optimizations" and sign an agreement acknowledging that any resulting likes legally belong to Meta's engagement dataset. The company confirmed that all successful boosts will be used to train their next AI model on "optimal social media engagement patterns."
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg defended the program's terms in an internal memo leaked to employees: "We considered offering authors exposure instead of post boosts, but our financial team determined that exposure still had too much monetary value." Each author will receive a complementary 47-page AI analysis detailing how their novel could have been written "more efficiently" with fewer characters and "unnecessary plot developments."
The Authors Guild has issued a statement calling the program "slightly worse than getting paid in exposure," though they acknowledge it's "marginally better than getting paid in died Facebook metaverse currency."
Meta's legal team emphasized that authors who accept the post boost automatically agree to forfeit any future claims regarding the use of their shopping lists, personal journals, or unfinished manuscripts in future AI training sets.
