Meta is pulling the plug on the Facebook News Tab for users based in the United States and Australia, as the tech giant continues to scale back its focus on news and political content across its platforms.
Launched back in 2019, the News Tab curated headlines and top stories from various national and local news publishers to provide Facebook users a dedicated space to discover current affair reports and keep up with the news cycle. However, as Meta pivots towards emphasizing more on community and connecting family/friends over public debates, the news aggregation feature will be discontinued in the mentioned regions from early April onwards.
The News Tab shutdown follows a similar move made last year when the option was removed for users in the UK, France and Germany. Meta claims the change will not impact how ordinary users, groups or organizations share and view news links on theirFacebook timelines. People will still be able to access news articles shared by pages, friends or groups they follow. However, the curated news feed selection will no longer be available.
The move is part of Meta's strategy to scale back political and news-related content recommendations on its platforms, as the social network has faced significant backlash and accusations over the spread of misinformation on such topics. The company wants to distance itself from the “arbiter of truth” image andallow people more control over what they see.
While the fact-checking programs and third party fact reviews will continue as before, this announcement highlightsMeta's dedication to gradually reducing its role in the news media ecosystem. It stresses that the change impacts algorithmic recommendations rather than posts from followed accounts. Only time will tell how this impacts the way Facebook users engage with news publishers on the platform.
