Facebook News tab to be unavailable soon

Change comes as Meta tries to scale back political content on its platform

29: Meta will be sunsetting Facebook News in early April for users in the US and Australia as the platform further deemphasises news and politics. The feature was shut down in the UK, France and Germany last year.

Launched in 2019, the News tab curated headlines from national and international news organisations, as well as smaller, local publications. Meta says users will still be able to view links to news articles, and news organisations will still be able to post and promote their stories and websites, as any other individual or organisation can on Facebook.

The change comes as Meta tries to scale back news and political content on its platforms following years of criticism about how it handles misinformation and whether it contributes to political polarisation.

This change does not impact posts from accounts people choose to follow; it impacts what the system recommends, and people can control if they want more, said Dani Lever, a

Meta spokesperson. This announcement expands on years of work on how we approach and treat political content based on what people have told us they wanted.

Meta said the change to the News tab does not affect its fact-checking network and review of misinformation.

But misinformation remains a challenge for the company, especially as the U.S. presidential election and other races get underway.

Facebook didnt envision itself as a political platform. It was run by tech people. And then suddenly it started scaling and they found themselves immersed in politics, and they themselves became the headline, said Sarah Kreps, director of the Tech Policy Institute in the Cornell Brooks School of Public Policy who studies tech policy and how new technologies evolve over time. —