Meta said on Thursday that it would shut down a dedicated section for news articles in April that will affect Facebook users in the U.S. and Australia. Meta said the decision to wind down the news tab is part of an ongoing effort to better align its investments to its products and services people value the most.
In early April 2024, Meta said it will deprecate Facebook News, a dedicated tab in the bookmarks section on Facebook that spotlights news, in the U.S. and Australia. This follows the company’s shutting down of Facebook News in the UK, France and Germany last year. Facebook News will stop making payment to news publishers for content sharing.
Facebook news shutting down
The social networking giant characterized the decision to shutter the Facebook News tab as “part of an ongoing effort to better align our investments to our products and services people value the most,” according to a corporate blog post.
“As a company, we have to focus our time and resources on things people tell us they want to see more of on the platform, including short form video,” the blog post said. “The number of people using Facebook News in Australia and the U.S. has dropped by over 80% last year.”
Controversies and misinformations
Meta’s decision to remove the Facebook News tab comes after the company said in September that it would eliminate the news section for Facebook users in the U.K., France and Germany. It marks another step in Meta’s efforts to distance itself from the news industry following several years of controversies related to how it addresses misinformation and enforces other content-moderation-related policies throughout its family of apps.
Focus on short-form video content
Although the social networking company debuted Facebook News in 2019 as a way to “bring people closer to the stories that affect their lives,” it’s been reallocating its resources into short-form video content via its Reels product as it faces competition from the ByteDance-owned TikTok social video app.
Viewing of links to news articles will continue on the core Facebook app and news publishers will continue to access Facebook accounts and Pages, “where they can post links to their stories and direct people to their websites, in the same way any other individual or organization can.”
No traditional news
Facebook news shut down will also not impact any of the existing Facebook News agreements that Meta has with publishers in Australia, France and Germany. However, it “will not enter into new commercial deals for traditional news content in these countries and will not offer new Facebook products specifically for news publishers in the future.“
In 2021, Meta reversed a decision to “restrict publishers and people in Australia from sharing or viewing Australian and international news content” after it reached an agreement with the Australian government over a law that would require tech companies to pay content fees to news outlets.
Meta said that it would “continue to invest in products and services that drive user engagement” and that “News organizations can also still leverage products like Reels and our ads system to reach broader audiences and drive people to their website, where they keep 100% of the revenue derived from outbound links on Facebook.”
Drop in referral traffic
As per a report, on the detrimental effects to publishers who have seen a massive drop in referral traffic as Meta continues to exit the news distribution business.
A similar study by the analytics company Similarweb also revealed that Facebook referral traffic declined heavily for the top 100 global news publishers after years of a consistent drop.
Mother Jones CEO, Monika Bauerlein said that the nonprofit news publication’s Facebook referrals have declined by 99% since 2017 when publishers were experiencing a massive amount of referrals from the social networking giant.
Impact on traditional news publishers
Meta’s decision to remove the dedicated news section from Facebook in certain countries underscores the changing dynamics of how people consume news and engage with social media platforms.
This shift reflects broader trends in user behavior towards shorter, more visually engaging content like short-form videos, as seen in the rise of platforms like TikTok.
From a business perspective, Meta’s move highlights the challenges faced by traditional news outlets in adapting to these changing consumption patterns. With social media platforms like Facebook reducing their emphasis on news distribution, publishers are forced to reconsider their digital strategies and reliance on platforms for audience reach.
This could prompt news organizations to explore alternative distribution channels and revenue streams to maintain their relevance and sustainability in the digital age.
Meta facing backslash
The Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance, Australia’s biggest union for journalists, questioned whether Meta cares about journalism.
“Facebook should compensate news organizations for making money from their journalism – if it won’t do it voluntarily, the govt should use the powers it has to force it to,” the union said in a post on X.
