Meta announced that it will stop offering the Facebook News feature in Australia, France and Germany, as it shifts its focus to other products and services that are more popular among its users. The company said it will not sign new deals with news publishers in these countries or launch new news-related products.
Meta said that users will still be able to share and view news articles on Facebook, and that news publishers will still have access to their accounts and pages, where they can post links to their stories and direct people to their websites.
News publishers can also use other Meta products like Reels and ads to reach wider audiences and drive traffic to their websites, where they can keep all the revenue from the links they share on Facebook, Meta added.
The company said that this decision does not affect the existing Facebook News agreements with publishers in Australia, France and Germany, which have already expired in the US and the UK. Meta has been in conflict with Australia over a law that requires it to pay publishers for news content.
The company said that news accounts for less than 3 percent of what people see on their Facebook feed, “and is a small part of the Facebook experience for the vast majority of our users”.