Meta to remove Facebook News from UK, Germany, and France

Facebook’s parent company Meta has announced that it plans to deprecate Facebook News in the United Kingdom, France, and Germany.

Facebook News, a dedicated tab on Facebook’s platform spotlighting news content, is set to be phased out, in early December.

Meta writing on its blog, justified this decision by stating that “Facebook is not primarily a news consumption platform”.

It added that “News content makes up less than 3 per cent of the content users see on their Facebook feeds”.

Meta pivots away from Facebook News

Meta said that while Facebook News may be deprecated, users will still be able to access news articles via links on the platform, and news publishers can continue to post links to their stories on their Facebook accounts and pages.

The move comes as it has recently faced laws brought by governments in Australia and Canada that want it to pay news publishers for content published on the social media platforms.

Meta has committed to honoring existing agreements with publishers in these countries, but it simultaneously said that it will not enter into new commercial deals for news content on Facebook News in the future in these countries.

Meta has pivoted into newer products such as creating “Reels’ which mimics TikTok, and Threads which competes with Twitter. The update on Facebook News included Meta’s push to use these platforms to reach users. It said, “News organisations can also still leverage products like Reels and our ads system to reach broader audiences and drive people to their website, where they keep 100% of the revenue derived from outbound links on Facebook”.