Facebook is Killing its News Tab in the US and Australia

Meta announced yesterday that Facebook will lose its News tab in the US and Australia in April. This News tab that features articles from select publishers was previously deprecated in the UK, France, and Germany last fall, and the company said that this is part of an effort to focus its resources on more popular features.

“The number of people using Facebook News in Australia and the U.S. has dropped by over 80% last year,” the Facebook team explained yesterday. “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.”

According to data the company shared in 2023, news content accounts for just 3% of what Facebook users see in their feeds. And the company argues that “short form video” is among the things that Facebook users said they want to see more on the platform.

Meta won’t do any new commercial deals with news publishers after its existing Facebook News agreements expire. However, Facebook users and news publishers in the US and Australia will still be able to post links to news stories after the News tab disappears in April. “News organizations can also still leverage products like Reels and our ads system to reach broader audiences and drive people to their website, where they keep 100% of the revenue derived from outbound links on Facebook,” the company also emphasized.

If most people would probably not consider Facebook a particularly good source of information on the Internet, the company remains committed to supporting its existing fact-checking initiatives. “We have built the largest global fact-checking network of any platform by partnering with more than 90 independent fact-checking organizations around the world who review content in more than 60 languages,” the company said.