Meta is trying to distance itself from media-related regulations and payment complexities as it plans to remove its Facebook news tab in the US and Australia. The company said today that the product will expire in April 2024.
Last year, Meta discontinued Facebook News in the UK, Germany and France, saying it wanted to put resources “into our products and services that people value most”. The tone of the latest announcement is similar.
The social networking company said the number of people using Facebook News in Australia and the US has fallen by 80% in the past year.
“This is part of an ongoing effort to better align our investments with our products and services that people value most. As a company, we need to focus our time and resources on the things people tell us they want to see more of on the platform, including short-form video,” it noted.
Last year, Meta said news is less than 3% of the content people watch on stream. Most likely, users may not notice this depreciation. Over the years, publishers have also seen drop in referral traffic from Facebook;.
The fate of Facebook News’ shutdown is due to regulatory moves and Meta’s withdrawal from investing in new products. Legislation passed in Australia and Canada has resulted in authorities requiring platforms to pay online publishers for their content. The company began blocking news links for users in Canada in August of last year.
Meta clarified that today’s announcement does not affect the current agreements that the company has with publishers until they expire. Additionally, in Australia and the US people will be able to share news in their feeds and publishers will be able to manage their pages and post links there.
The company stressed that it has no plans to invest in new news-related products.
“Furthermore, to ensure that we continue to invest in products and services that drive user engagement, we will not enter into new commercial agreements for traditional news content in these countries and will not offer new Facebook products specifically for news publishers in the future” . he said.
Meta has pulled back from constantly allocating effort to news. Instagram chief Adam Mosseri said last year that the company was “not going to amplify news” on Threads, a social network it launched last year.
