“This undermines the entire point of the open graph protocol (at least for images). If you have to manually review every image that you include then what's the point in it being a machine protocol?”
Bingo.
Ianal but it feels like if you provide an image via an open graph link, you’re implicitly licensing that image to consumers of the Open Graph protocol to be displayed alongside a link/link metadata.
If the media company didn’t have the rights to relicense that image for consumption via Open Graph and/or the original licensor didn’t want their images appearing via Open Graph, that media company shouldn’t be using Open Graph.
That is such a frustrating situation. I hope the courts would have ruled in your favor but I understand why you chose not to test it.
For example, if you’re active in any FOSS channels, you’re likely to receive spam invites to rooms containing illegal content (with disturbing room images and names that appear on the invite). This has been a known issue for years, and a high visibility issue about it (with responses from Matrix’s managing director) from last summer remains open and largely unaddressed.
This issue link is for the Element client, but it contains links to several related proposals for home servers, clients, and the protocol, many of which are still open/completely unresolved. Notably, the MSC related to invite blocking via policy servers or suggestions about ignoring invites via client settings.
https://github.com/element-hq/element-meta/issues/2486