Meta announced on February 29th that it will not reach new agreements with traditional news publishers in Australia and the United States, and stated that the number of people using Facebook news specific tags in these countries decreased by more than 80% last year. Meta states that people want to see more short videos, and consumers are not on Facebook to watch news.
Meta stated in a blog post that people will still be able to view links to news articles on Facebook, and publishers will continue to access their own accounts and post links like other users. In 2021, Meta blocked news in Australia due to a dispute with the Australian government over news payment issues.
Meta stated that it will "abolish" the dedicated news tag called Facebook News in the United States and Australia in early April. Last year, the company stated that it would adopt this approach in the UK, France, and Germany, and also stated that it would not reach new agreements with publishers in these countries.