Meta to Discontinue “Facebook News” Feature in UK, France, Germany: Here’s Why

Meta Platforms mentioned on Tuesday it is going to discontinue the “Facebook News” characteristic on its social media app within the UK, France and Germany, later this yr.

Users will nonetheless have the ability to view hyperlinks to information articles and European information publishers will proceed to have entry to their Facebook accounts and pages after the change is carried out in December, Meta mentioned.

However, Facebook won’t kind new industrial offers for information content material on “Facebook News”, nor provide product improvements for information publishers in these nations.

“Facebook News”, which curates a feed of stories articles, is a devoted tab within the bookmarks part of the Facebook app.

“News makes up less than 3 percent of what people around the world see in their Facebook feed, so news discovery is a small part of the Facebook experience for the vast majority of people,” Meta mentioned in a blog post.

Along with Big Tech peer Alphabet, the corporate has come underneath rising strain from lawmakers around the globe to share a better share of its promoting income with information publishers. 

Meta has began blocking information on its Facebook and Instagram platforms for all customers in Canada in response to a brand new legislation requiring web giants to pay information publishers. Australia carried out an identical legislation in 2021.

In its weblog, Meta mentioned that the brand new announcement comes as part of the corporate to reinforce the services. It believes that customers don’t come to Facebook to collect information and political content material, however fairly use the platform as a method to join with folks and uncover new alternatives.