In early April 2024, Meta will deprecate Facebook News, a dedicated tab in the bookmarks section on Facebook that spotlights news, in the US and Australia. Last year Meta deprecated Facebook News in the UK, France and Germany.
Meta said this is part of an ongoing effort to better align its investments to its products and services people value the most.
“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 number of people using Facebook News in Australia and the U.S. has dropped by over 80 percent last year. 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. As we previously shared in 2023, news makes up less than 3 percent of what people around the world see in their Facebook feed, and is a small part of the Facebook experience for the vast majority of people,” Meta said in a blog post.
The changes affecting the Facebook News feature will not otherwise impact Meta’s products and services in these countries, it added.
People will still be able to view links to news articles on Facebook. News publishers will continue to have access to 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. “News organizations can also still leverage products like Reels and Meta’s ads system to reach audiences and drive people to their website, where they keep 100 percent of the revenue derived from outbound links on Facebook,” Meta assured users and publishers.
The company added, “While we’ll be deprecating Facebook News in these countries, this announcement does not impact the terms under our existing Facebook News agreements with publishers in Australia, France and Germany. These deals have already expired in the US and the UK. Additionally, to ensure that we continue to invest in products and services that drive user engagement, we 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.”
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