Facebook’s news tab is set to be scrapped in the UK, as well as France and Germany, by December this year.
The decision by Meta, Facebook’s parent company, follows tension between the company and various international governments regarding payments to media sources.
The change means that Facebook will no longer pull through articles to be shown in its user feed. While this may not make too much difference to the average user, the controversy around the decision relates to the ending of payments for news media organisations currently benefitting from the news tab.
New legislation in the UK, as well as in the EU, may see social media platforms such as Facebook be required to pay for the news shared on its platform. Agreements of this nature already exist in Canada and Australia. However, while Meta has agreed to honour its existing media payment deals, it says it will not be extending any current agreements, or signing any new paid-media partnerships.
The news tab on Facebook, which can be found deep in the app’s menu, was already dropped in the US last year, after making up only 3% of the content viewed on the site.
While news media sources have already witnessed the major loss of advertising revenue to digital and social media platforms, over the years Facebook has looked for ways to help news organisations financially, to little success. Now, these efforts appear to have ceased.
This is not to say you won’t be able to find helpful news on Facebook anymore. By checking out our Facebook page, you’ll be able to find helpful news articles just like this one on social media and the marketing industry, as well as useful guides that may help you with your business.
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