Facebook is getting rid of the News tab in the U.S. and Australia

Meta
said
Thursday
that
it
would
remove
a
dedicated
section
for
news
articles
in
April
that
will
affect
Facebook
users
in
the
United
States
and
Australia.

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.”

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.

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.

Despite
Meta
shuttering
the
Facebook
News
tab
in
various
countries,
it
said
in
the
blog
post
that
people
can
still
view
links
to
news
articles
on
the
core
Facebook
app
and
that
news
publishers
will
still
be
able
to
access
their
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.”

The
update
will
also
not
impact
any
of
the
existing
Facebook
News
agreements
that
Meta
has
with
publishers
in
Australia,
France
and
Germany;
the
company
noted
that
similar
news-related
“deals
have
already
expired
in
the
US
and
the
UK,”
according
to
the
blog
post.

However,
Meta
said
that
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.”

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.”

Earlier
in
January,
CNBC
reported
on
the
detrimental
effects
to
publishers
who
have
seen
a
massive
drop
in
referral
traffic
as
Meta
continues
to
exit
the
news
distribution
business.
Last
summer,
Meta
said
that
Canadian
Facebook
and
Instagram
users
would
no
longer
be
able
to

access
news
on
Facebook
following
a
disagreement
between
the
company
and
the
Canadian
government
over
its
passing
of
the
Online
News
Act,
which
requires
tech
companies
like
Meta
to
pay
fees
to
news
publishers
in
the
country.

The
analytics
firm
Chartbeat
conducted
an
analysis
of
1,930
news
and
media
websites
from
over
370
companies
on
behalf
of
CNBC,
which
showed
that
Facebook
represented
about
33%
of
these
publishers’
overall
social
traffic
as
of
December
2023.
A
year
ago,
Facebook
represented
about
50%
the
media
outlets’
social
traffic.

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.
Bauerlein
added
that
while
the
Facebook
page
of
Mother
Jones
has
amassed
more
followers
than
it
ever
had,
users
are
seeing
less
of
the
publication’s
news
stories
that
it
shares
on
the
app.

“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
at
the
time.

Watch:

Nvidia,
Sam
Altman
and
the
trillion-dollar
AI
dream