Meta has begun informing its news partners that it will no longer pay publishers for their content to appear on Facebook’s News Tab in the United States.
According to Axios, as Facebook continues to make significant changes to the user experience, news has become less of a priority.
According to sources, Meta’s VP of media partnerships, Campbell Brown, told staffers that the company was shifting resources away from its news products to support more creative initiatives.
In 2019, Facebook negotiated a slew of three-year deals with publishers. At the time, the company was increasing its investment in news and hired journalists to assist in directing publisher traffic to its new news tab.
In the United States, the transactions were worth approximately $105 million.
According to the report, the company also spent around $90 million on news videos for the company’s video tab called “Watch.”
“A lot has changed since we signed deals three years ago to test bringing additional news links to Facebook News in the US. Most people do not come to Facebook for news, and as a business it doesn’t make sense to over-invest in areas that do not align with user preferences,” a Facebook spokesperson was quoted as saying.
The $105 million spent on new news content for the News Tab went toward incremental links.
News organisations could continue to publish content to the Facebook platform at their leisure.
Although hundreds of news publishers remain eligible to have their content included in the News Tab, funding for approximately 50 publishers’ content will not be renewed.
