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Social network to “better align” investments, reducing news focus
Meta announced today that it will end Facebook News in the U.K., Germany, and France in early December.
The social network said it was part of its “ongoing effort to better align our investments to our products and services people value the most.”
Facebook News, launched by Meta in 2019, is a curated news section for publishers in its own tab on Facebook. It debuted in the U.S. before expanding to the U.K., Germany, Australia, and France. The company planned to launch the service in Brazil and India, but those plans failed.
Local and international news relevant to each market is on Facebook News. In its original form, suggested articles were algorithmically generated and a human-curated “top stories” section. Meta revealed last year that it was algorithmicizing the entire section.
No news
Today’s announcement matches Meta’s online news efforts. Facebook has prioritized news sharing since its inception, but it has been deprioritizing it for many reasons. This includes political stories’ divisiveness, which has led the company to shift toward the creator economy. This included renaming its news feed “feed” last year.
The larger picture is that industrial and legislative pushback against social networks’ news distribution role. This led to new legislation in countries like Australia requiring online platforms to pay publishers for their content, which seems to have worked as big tech companies negotiated deals with many publishers.
Recently, Canada passed the Online News Act, which prompted Meta to block Canadians from reading news publisher stories. This raised questions about why Meta couldn’t reach similar deals with Canadian outlets as it did in Australia, and Justin Trudeau criticized Facebook.
Other mandates are going through legal channels, including the U.S.
The EU Copyright Directive has also led Meta and Google to sign licensing deals in Europe in recent years.
Facebook referral traffic has dropped for publishers across the board in recent months, confirming Meta’s long-standing mission to move away from news. Today’s announcement on Facebook News in Europe confirmed that news makes up less than 3% of users’ feeds.
“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,” Facebook wrote.
Meta emphasizes that it’s only removing the News tab in the U.K., Germany, and France, not blocking links to articles or publishers’ pages.
The company stated that European 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 like any other individual or organization.
Meta stated that it does “not expect to offer new Facebook products specifically for news publishers in the future,” addressing any doubts about its future plans for news publishers.
