Facebook Will Lose its News Tab in the UK, France and Germany

Meta is preparing to remove the News tab from Facebook in the UK, France, and Germany in December. This new tab currently serves as a content aggregator, and Meta had previously struck some deals with content publishers to offer them more advertising and subscription opportunities.

The main reason for the deprecation of this News tab in these European markets is that the economics didn’t work. While Meta said that it would honor its obligations with local publishers, the company also hinted that this tab gets very low usage in Europe.

“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. News makes up less than 3% of what people around the world see in their Facebook feed, so news discovery is a small part of the Facebook experience for the vast majority of people,” Meta explained today.

European publishers will be able to continue posting their stories on the platform after the News tab goes away in December. Facebook users in Europe will also be able to continue viewing news on Facebook. The situation is really not comparable to what recently happened with the Online News Act in Canada, which led Meta to remove all news content from Facebook to avoid paying publishers to display their content.

“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,” Meta said today. If you still use Facebook, you should probably get ready to see more TikTok-like content on the platform.