Meta said the move is due to falling user interest and that it will focus on short-form video.
Facebook plans to drop its news tabs in the United States and Australia which its parent company Meta said was due to falling demand.
The company announced on Thursday that it will “deprecate” Facebook news – its dedicated tab in the bookmarks section on Facebook that spotlights news – in April 2024, saying that it wanted to allocate resources “to our products and services people value the most”.
Meta discontinued Facebook news in the United Kingdom, France, and Germany last year.
The social media company said that users of Facebook News in Australia and the US dropped by 80 per cent in the last year.
“We know that people don’t come to Facebook for news and political content,” the announcement read.
“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 the changes would not impact its efforts to curb misinformation nor its “commitment to connecting people to reliable information on our platforms,” pointing out they work with accredited third-party fact-checkers.
The company also said the announcement does not affect any publishing deals it currently has until they expire.
Facebook to close its news tabs in the US and Australia – Euronews
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