Meta Deletes Facebook News Tab in Europe
On September 5th, Meta announced that it would be deleting the Facebook News tab in the UK, France, and Germany in early December.
Meta’s move towards deprecation is driven by several factors. According to the company, “News makes up less than 3% of what people around the world see in their Facebook feed.” This implies that most people are getting their news from other sources.
Adding to that, Meta said: “This is part of an ongoing effort to better align our investments to the products and services people value the most. As a company, 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.” It believes that these products are more popular with users and offer more profitability in the long term.
Legal challenges have been encountered by Meta, the father company of Facebook, in some countries related to its news products. Some countries like Australia passed a law requiring Facebook and Google to pay news publishers for their content. It also has been fined by the European Union for antitrust violations related to its new products.
The social networking giant has chosen not to disclose any financial details concerning the Facebook News tab services in the three countries. The company has refrained from revealing the revenue generated by the service or the operational expenses associated with it.
The decision to eliminate the dedicated news section from Facebook is likely to have a mixed impact on users in the aforementioned three countries. It may become more challenging for users to find news content, potentially benefiting other news organizations like X (formerly known as Twitter), and Google News, while negatively affecting others. Smaller news organizations lack the resources to invest more in their own marketing and distribution channels.
As previously emphasized, Meta’s decision to focus more on short-form video, particularly Reels, is a strategic move to compete with other Social Media platforms like TikTok and YouTube Shorts. Reels is the platform of choice for users, and Meta is betting its potential to create and share short entertaining videos.
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