Meta will remove the Facebook News tab in several countries after it was taken away in Canada.
The corporation will take down its specialized news section from its platform in the UK, France, and Germany at the beginning of December. Meta says this is to put more attention on the services and products that users want.
Meta said it will stick to deals with Facebook news publishers in the UK, France, and Germany. The company made it clear that it won’t renew contracts or make new ones in some countries. The company also said it has no plans to make new Facebook tools for news publishers.
Read also: Meta launches SeamlessM4T AI to translate, transcribe 100+ languages
Meta claims Facebook users are more interested in short videos, connecting with others, and finding possibilities, interests, and passions because news makes up less than 3% of feeds.
Meta switched from human managers to algorithms for Facebook News tab story selection earlier this year. Meta stated news would not be its primary focus when it launched Threads, even though Threads is designed to compete with X (previously Twitter), which has been a news and current events hub for over a decade.
Meta restricted Canadian news information due to a pending regulation requiring publishers to be paid. However, the firm has told news organizations that they may still share links, Reels, and other content on Facebook in the three countries above and that people will not have problems accessing news content due to this change.
Facebook news tab removal in Canada
The decision by the company that owns Facebook to get rid of all news material in Canada has caused controversy and has been criticized.
In response, the Canadian government said that Meta would have to pay publishers about CAD 62 million (USD 45.5 million) yearly to comply with its Online News Act and keep putting news material on Facebook and Instagram in Canada.
The company, on the other hand, said it would not agree to the terms of a new change suggested by Justin Trudeau, the prime minister of Canada. Bloomberg says that the law would force the social media giant to pay news providers for the news material they put on Facebook.
With this change, the prime minister wants to force tech giants like Facebook and Google to pay news organisations for their material. It comes after the government spent a long time trying to get social media giants to pay news organisations for the information they put on their platforms.
The law requires Meta and Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent firm, to pay news outlets 4% of their Canadian revenues for linking to news items.
“As the legislation is based on the incorrect assertion that Meta benefits unfairly from the news content shared on our platforms, today’s proposed regulations will not impact our business decision to end news availability in Canada,” said Rachel Curran, head of public policy for the company in Canada, via email.
The move drastically alters the financial paradigm of national social media organizations. It also portrays the prime minister as a leader who would safeguard the free press and the news media’s sustainability in the age of digital advertising, which has made Google and Facebook some of the world’s most valuable businesses.