Facebook made a major change after years of PR disasters, and news sites are paying the price

Mother
Jones
CEO
Monika
Bauerlein
has
had
a
front-row
seat
in
recent
years
to
watch
Facebook
upend
the
media
industry.

Bauerlein,
who
took
over
as
CEO
of
the
publication
nine
years
ago,
remembers
when
about
5
million
users
a
month
visited
the
Mother
Jones
website
after
coming
across
articles
distributed
on
Facebook.
That
was
in
2017.

But
Facebook,
now
known
as


Meta,
is
out
of
the
news
business,
a
move
that’s
disrupted
the
traffic
flow
for
many
publications
—
Mother
Jones
has
seen
a
99%
drop
in
Facebook
referrals
since
its
peak
—
and
had
disastrous
consequences
for
some.
In
September,
Meta
said
it
would
“deprecate”
its
Facebook
news
tab
in
European
countries
including
the
U.K.,
France
and
Germany
as
“part
of
an
ongoing
effort
to
better
align
our
investments
to
our
products
and
services
people
value
the
most.”

The
push
away
from
news
followed
years
of
public
relations
disasters
for
Facebook
regarding
the
company’s
handling
of
misinformation
and
its
decisions
on
when
to

cancel
accounts
and
remove
posts.
Conservative
politicians
have
long

accused
the
company
of
operating
with
a
liberal
bias,
while
groups
on
the
other
side
portrayed
Facebook
as
instrumental
in
the
2016
election
of

Donald
Trump
because
of
how

Russian
operatives
exploited
the
site
to
boost
his
candidacy.

“At
this
point,
it
seems
pretty
clear
from
the
comments
that
executives
at
Facebook
and
Meta
made
that
they
have
just
decided
that
news
is
more
trouble
than
it’s
worth
and
that
they
will
show
people
a
fairly
minimal
amount
of
it,”
Bauerlein
said
in
an
interview.

At
Mother
Jones,
a
48-year-old
nonprofit
magazine
specializing
in
politics
and
investigations,
the
implications
were
dramatic.
Though
Facebook
had
generated
millions
of
referrals
a
month
for
Mother
Jones
during
its
heyday,
in
November
and
December
it
generated
just
over
58,000
and
67,000
visitors,
respectively,
for
Mother
Jones,
down
from
about
172,000
and
228,000
in
the
same
months
a
year
earlier.

An
analysis
of
1,930
news
and
media
websites
from
over
370
companies
conducted
by
the
analytics
firm
Chartbeat
for
CNBC
revealed
that
Facebook
accounted
for
33%
of
those
publishers’
overall
social
traffic,
measured
by
page
views,
as
of
December,
down
from
50%
a
year
earlier.

As
to
all
external
traffic,
which
comes
from
social
media
and
search
engines
such
as


Google,
Facebook
represented
6%
of
referral
volume
in
December
2023,
down
from
14%
in
December
2018
and
12%
in
December
2022.
That
decline
is
mostly
due
to
Facebook,
as
Google
accounted
for
38%
of
external
traffic
in
December,
up
from
26%
five
years
earlier
and
36%
in
2022.

Jill
Nicholson,
chief
marketing
officer
at
Chartbeat,
said
Facebook’s
social
traffic
decline
stems
from
several
moves
at
Meta,
including
banning
Canadian
users
last
year
from
sharing
news
on
its
apps
after
Canada’s
federal
government
passed
the

Online
News
Act,
which
forced
tech
companies
to
pay
content
fees
to
domestic
media
outlets.

Nicholson
said
a
similar
ban
by
Meta
in

Australia
in
2021
ended
up
“making
news
less
accessible”
in
general.
Facebook
eventually

reversed
that
decision
after
reaching
a
deal
with
the
Australian
government.

Meta
CEO

Mark
Zuckerberg
is
showing
little
interest
in
wading
into
hot-button
issues
on
politics
and
global
affairs
after
taking
numerous

trips
to
Capitol
Hill
following
the
2016
election.
Since

changing
his
company’s
name
to
Meta
in
late
2021,
Zuckerberg
has
been
focused
on
investing
billions
of
dollars
a
quarter
to
develop
the
futuristic
metaverse
while
trying
to
fend
off
competition
from
TikTok
by
bolstering
Reels,
Meta’s
short-form
video
product
that’s
used
by
creators.

His
strategy
is
paying
off
on
Wall
Street.
Meta’s
stock
closed
at
a

record
Friday,
as
it
continues
to
rally
following
an
almost
200%
pop
last
year.

David
Carr,
senior
insights
manager
at
analytics
firm
Similarweb,
said
Meta’s
changing
approach
to
news
isn’t
all
about
Zuckerberg’s
preferences.
Users
are
also
tired
of
all
the
online
bickering.

“One
of
the
things
that
Facebook
has
talked
about
as
a
justification
or
a
reason
why
they’re
making
some
changes
is
that
people
are
happier
using
the
service
when
they
don’t
see
all
that
political
stuff,”
Carr
said.

A
Meta
spokesperson,
echoing
previous

statements
from
company
executives,
said
the
shift
away
from
news
has
been
driven
by
user
behavior.

“We
know
that
people
don’t
come
to
Facebook
for
news
and
political
content
—
they
come
to
connect
with
people
and
discover
new
opportunities,
passions
and
interests,”
the
spokesperson
said.
“We’ve
made
several
changes
to
better
align
our
investments
to
our
products
and
services
people
value
the
most.”

In
de-emphasizing
news,
Meta
hasn’t
just
minimized
contentious
political
debates.
It’s
made
it
harder
for
publications
of
all
types
and
sizes
to
circulate
stories
to
Facebook’s
3
billion
monthly
users.

Data
from
Similarweb
showed
that
the
top
100
global
news
publishers
saw
Facebook
referral
traffic
plummet
in
2023
from
2022
following
a
steady
decline
over
several
years.

Facebook
represented
2.7%
of
the
Daily
Mail’s
global
referral
traffic
in
November
2023,
a
decline
from
6.5%
in
November
2020
and
3.8%
in
November
2022,
according
to
Similarweb.
For
The
Independent,
Facebook’s
contribution
dropped
to
1.3%
of
traffic
in
November
from
6.5%
three
years
earlier
and
4%
in
2022.

Publications
have
had
to
adapt,
finding
other
ways
to
draw
in
traffic.
For
some
ad-based
sites
that
needed
the
big
Facebook
numbers
to
make
money,
the
change
was
existential.

BuzzFeed,
once
known
for
viral
posts
and
videos,

shut
down
its
BuzzFeed
News
site
in
April.
The
company
still
owns
news
site
HuffPost,
but
its
main
site
largely
contains
entertainment
content,
quizzes
and
videos.

The
company
has
a
market
cap
of
under
$35
million
—
nine
years
after


Comcast-owned
NBCUniversal,
the
parent
company
of
CNBC,
invested
at
a
$1.5
billion
valuation.
BuzzFeed’s
estimated
Facebook
referral
traffic
was
12%
in
November
2023,
down
from
15%
a
year
earlier,
according
to
Similarweb.

Vice
Media,
which
was
valued
at
$5.7
billion
in
2017,

declared
bankruptcy
in
May.

Some
top
media
brands
experienced
a
bigger
drop
in
Facebook
traffic
in
earlier
years
as
they
recognized
over
time
the
need
to
diversify
their
sources
of
distribution.
Across
the
media
industry,
news
organizations
have
been
steadily
weaning
themselves
from
reliance
on
Facebook.

Sam
Cholke,
an
audience
growth
and
distribution
manager
for
the
Institute
for
Nonprofit
News,
cited
The
Texas
Tribune
and
Montana
Free
Press
as
examples
of
publications
that
are
taking
other
routes
to
finding
readers.
The
Texas
Tribune,
an
online
nonprofit
paper
launched
in
2009,
is
leveraging
in-person
events
to
attract
readers,
while
the
Montana
Free
Press,
started
in
2016
by
journalist
John
S.
Adams,
is
running
billboard
ads
in
the
capital
city
of
Helena.

BuzzFeed
CEO
Jonah
Peretti
told
analysts
on
his
company’s
earnings
call
in
August
that
he’s
“laser-focused”
on
a
new
strategy
involving
the
use
of
artificial
intelligence
to
help
generate
content
in
addition
to
relying
more
on
creators.

“As
Facebook
and
other
major
tech
platforms
continue
to
prioritize
vertical
video,
traffic
referrals
from
these
platforms
to
our
content
have
diminished,”
Peretti

said
on
the
call.

Jessica
Probus,
BuzzFeed’s
publisher,
told
CNBC
in
an
interview
that
BuzzFeed’s
“biggest
shift”
in
its
Facebook
and
audience
strategy
occurred
around
2021. While
there
was
a
“slow
trickle
decline
for
a
long
time,”
the
major
“turning
point,”
she
said,
occurred
when
Meta
began
going

more
directly
after
TikTok.

BuzzFeed
decided
to
“take
an
even
bigger
emphasis
on
our
own
properties,”
which
included
its
core
app
and
website
as
well
as
others
such
as
HuffPost
and
Tasty.

BuzzFeed
is
looking
for
other
ways
to
make
money,
which
includes
selling
sponsorships,
subscriptions
and

memberships,
and
a
commerce
business
that’s
“monetized
through
transactions,
things
that
people
are
buying
through
our
site,”
Probus
said.

Because
Mother
Jones
is
a
nonprofit
and
relies
on
donors
and
subscribers
rather
than
primarily
ads,
Bauerlein
said
the
publication
has
been
able
to
weather
the
social
media
storm
better
than
others.

“The
firehose
of
Facebook
traffic
was
never
going
to
pay
for
our
journalism,
for
the
majority
of
our
journalism,”
Bauerlein
said.
Regarding
the
pursuit
of
traffic
by
media
upstarts,
Bauerlein
said,
“a
lot
of
venture
capital
was
burned
in
the
process.”

Bauerlein
said
Mother
Jones
has
still
managed
to
attain
more
Facebook
followers
than
ever
before,
which
she
said
points
to
the
level
of
consumer
appetite
for
its
stories
even
if
they’re
harder
to
find.

“Now,
you’re
just
not
seeing
that
information
that
you
chose
to
see,”
Bauerlein
said.
That’s
“a
real
broken
promise
to
the
users,
especially
at
a
time
when
the
world
is
incredibly
complicated
and
incredibly
hard
to
understand.”

Cholke
said
that
when
it
comes
to
Facebook
and
news,
the
writing
has
been
on
the
wall
for
years.
Last
decade,
many
publishers
saw
their
“social
traffic
decline
pretty
dramatically,”
with
Facebook
deprioritizing
text-based
articles
in
favor
of
video
content,
Cholke
said.
In
2019,
Facebook
paid

$40
million
in
a
settlement
to
advertisers
who
alleged
in
a
lawsuit
that
the
company
overinflated
its
video
metrics,
resulting
in
higher-priced
video
ads.

“For
a
lot
of
people,
me
included,
it
was
one
of
the
first
signals
that
we’ve
got
to
get
smart
about
this,”
Cholke
said.

The
400-plus
North
American
media
outlets
associated
with
the
Institute
for
Nonprofit
News
are
scrambling
to
find
ways
to
reach
readers,
Cholke
said.
Some
publishers
are
doubling
down
on
Google
search
traffic,
a
strategy
that
poses
other
risks.

Last
year,
for
example,
a
bug
in
Google
Discover,
a
personalized
news
and
content
feed,
caused

traffic
to
decline
for
a
number
of
publishers.

On
top
of
the
changes
at
Facebook,
that’s
led
to
the
question:
“What
are
the
other
options?”
Cholke
said.

Chartbeat’s
Nicholson
said
one
site
that’s
being
used
is
YouTube,
where
“some
are
branching
out
into
monetizing
social
video.”
But
for
the
most
part,
she
said,
publications
have
to
rely
more
on
“their
own
operated
platforms,”
where
traffic
patterns
are
less
volatile.

“When
those
trends
started
going
downward
for
social
in
terms
of
a
referral
source,
that
is
where
people
really
got
into
the
business
of
diversification,
investing
more
into
newsletters
and
apps,”
Nicholson
said.

Longtime
media
columnist
Mathew
Ingram,
a
chief
digital
writer
at
the
Columbia
Journalism
Review,
said
Facebook
was
“never
a
good
place”
for
news,
because
it
“focused
on
emotion
and
sharing
for
other
purposes”
rather
than
on
seeking
the
truth.

That
was
true
even
when
Facebook
focused
on
news.
But
when
the
platform
began
pushing
news
stories
down,
the
economics
stopped
working.

“In
order
to
keep
your
traffic
and
all
your
numbers
where
they
were,
you
just
try
three
times
as
hard,
and
then
eventually,
you’re
sort
of
blowing
all
this
time
and
resources
for
a
diminishing
return,”
Ingram
said.

Data
from
the
Pew
Research
Center
shows
that
TikTok
is
taking
some
market
share
when
it
comes
to
where
consumers
get
their
news.

In
a

study
published
in
November,
Pew
found
that
the
percentage
of
U.S.
adults
who
say
they
regularly
turn
to
TikTok
for
news
has
more
than
quadrupled
since
2020
to
14%
from
3%.
Elisa
Shearer,
a
senior
researcher
at
Pew,
told
CNBC
that
over
that
stretch
the
portion
of
Facebook
users
who
said
they
regularly
get
news
on
the
site
has
dropped
to
43%
from
54%.

But
the
way
people
access
news
on
TikTok
is
different.
Rather
than
seeing
links
to
stories
from
outside
publications,
the
news
tends
to
be
delivered
by
influencers
in
short
videos.
That
makes
it
a
particularly
poor
source
of
traffic
for
media
outlets.

Still,
Bauerlein
said
Mother
Jones
is
building
a
bigger
presence
on
TikTok
as
well
as
Instagram
because
the
publication
wants
to
find
consumers
where
they
are
and
“serve
people
who
are
looking
for
trustworthy
information,”
she
said.

“If
we
all
end
up
finding
news
in
the
metaverse,
then
you’ll
be
finding
Mother
Jones
in
the
metaverse,”
she
said.
What
Mother
Jones
won’t
do,
she
said,
is
“bet
everything
on
one
platform,
because
that
never
works
out.”

Disclosure:
Comcast-owned
NBCUniversal
is
the
parent
company
of
CNBC.

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