Facebook's News tab launched in 2019 with millions of dollars in content deals for publishers ($10 million reported for the Wall Street Journal, 20 million dollars for the New York Timesand $3 million for CNN), but in April it will disappear forever. Goal says it will “deprecate” Facebook News in the US and Australia in April 2024, it will not enter into new commercial agreements for news and “will not offer new Facebook products specifically for news publishers in the future.”
Facebook News, located in the News tab, is no longer available in the United Kingdom, France and Germany. Starting in early April, it will no longer be available in the United States and Australia. Learn more.
This isn't the first time Facebook has moved away from news. Remember instant articles? – and the writing has been on the wall. In 2022, it shifted its focus from news to the creator economy, and former head of news partnerships Campbell Brown left the company last October.
But when it introduced Facebook News in 2019, the company saying“We hope that this work will help in our effort to sustain good journalism and strengthen democracy,” and that a survey “found that we were not addressing many of the topics that people most wanted on their news channels, especially in categories such as entertainment , health, business”. and sports.”
Now, Meta has a different message, reiterating the claim that “news accounts for less than 3 percent of what people around the world see on their Facebook account, and is a small part of the Facebook experience for people.” vast majority of people.” Instead of paying publishers, Meta “will need to focus our time and resources on things that people tell us they want to see more of on the platform, including short videos.”
It continued by inviting publishers to continue posting links on their own pages, using products like Reels and ads to drive people to their own websites, away from Facebook.
The end of Facebook's licensing agreements is old news here in the US, where it abandoned the agreements two years ago, but in Australia, it eliminates the $70 million per year it paid to outlets such as Sky News Australia, News Corp, Seven, Nine. , and The Guardian. Those three-year deals were made after the Australian government passed the Mandatory Bargaining Code for News Media and Digital Platforms, and are set to expire.
The 2021 power struggle ended after Australia amended its law to include Facebook temporarily enforcing a news ban that removed pages from government and nonprofit organizations. Facebook and Instagram blocked news in Canada last year over a similar law.
