Meta is taking steps to reduce its involvement with news media regulations and payment obligations by planning to eliminate the news tab feature on Facebook in both the U.S. and Australia.
The company announced that this feature will be phased out by April 2024. This follows Meta‘s previous decision to end Facebook News in the UK, Germany, and France, to reallocate resources towards more valued products and services.
The company noted a significant decline in the usage of Facebook News in Australia and the U.S., with an 80% drop over the past year.
Meta’s decision is influenced by the need to prioritize investments in areas that users show a strong preference for, such as short-form videos.
The company pointed out that news content constitutes less than 3% of what users encounter in their feeds, suggesting that the removal of the news tab might go largely unnoticed.
Additionally, publishers have been experiencing reduced referral traffic from Facebook for some time.
The discontinuation of Facebook News is also a response to regulatory challenges, particularly in countries like Australia and Canada, where legislation requires platforms to compensate online publishers for their content.
Meta responded to such regulations by blocking news links for Canadian users in August of the previous year.
While today’s announcement marks a significant shift, Meta clarified that it does not impact existing agreements with publishers until they expire.
Users in Australia and the U.S. will still be able to share news on their feeds, and publishers can continue to manage their pages and share links.
However, Meta has made it clear that it does not plan to pursue new investments in news-related products or enter into new commercial agreements for traditional news content in these markets.
The company’s focus will remain on enhancing user engagement through other products and services, as evidenced by Instagram head Adam Mosseri’s statement last year about not amplifying news content on Threads, another social network launched by Meta.
