Facebook is planning to remove the «News» tab for social network users in the United States and Australia. This will happen by the end of April. This means that the platform will no longer be a place to view news.
The «News» tab is a special tab in the Facebook bookmarks section that covers news. Due to the interface, it is not easy to find (probably, some people did not know about its existence).
At the same time, Facebook insists that users don’t use the social networking site for news anyway, claiming that only 3% of what users see worldwide is news articles.
«The number of people using Facebook News in Australia and the United States fell by more than 80% last year. We know that people don’t come to Facebook for news or political content — they come to connect with people and discover new opportunities, passions and interests»,” the statement continued.
The decision to shut down the «News» tab on Facebook came after other Meta resources such as Instagram and Threads made it clear that they did not want to get into the news business. Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri said that since Threads was launched last year, it is not a place for news.
At the same time, Facebook emphasizes that news outlets will still be able to share their content on the platform, and users will still be allowed to share any news articles they like in their own feeds. Facebook also noted that they are still committed to fact-checking on the site.
Source: gizmodo