Posted 3/1/2024, 3:28:00 PM
Meta Scraps Facebook News Tab, Halts Deals with News Publishers Amid Strategic Shift
- Meta will scrap Facebook's News Tab feature for users in the US and Australia starting in April, stopping deals to pay news publishers for content.
- The move comes as Meta shifts focus away from news to other priorities like short-form video that users engage with more.
- The decisions have drawn backlash from media advocacy groups and government officials who say it hurts funding for quality journalism.
- Meta previously discontinued the News Tab in the UK, France and Germany in 2022 as it pulled back spending on news content globally.
- The shift follows years of criticism that Meta and Google don't adequately compensate news publishers for the traffic and ad revenue generated from their content.