Facebook has closed down its news tab as its parent company, Meta, follows through with plans to reduce news content available on its services.
The news tab was inaccessible for users in Australia as of Tuesday but the company said it would take a number of days to fully shut it down in Australia and the United States.
The technology giant, which owns Facebook and Instagram, has been criticised by the Australian government and media outlets over its decision to stop paying publishers for news content.
A Meta spokesperson said there would be no change to publishers’ ability to use Facebook.
“They can continue to benefit from our free tools and products, which they can voluntarily use, should they want to,” she said.
“We hope the government sees the many benefits our free services provide to publishers and we’ll continue to engage with them on this topic.”
Meta announced the closure of its news tab in February, along with its decision not to enter into new deals to pay Australian news publishers for content once current agreements expire this year.
Australia’s assistant competition minister, Andrew Leigh, condemned Meta’s decision as an “abrogation of their responsibility” and pointed to the penalties under the news media bargaining code, which the government could use against the company.
“It is not too much to ask one of the world’s biggest multinationals to make a modest contribution to the Australian news media in order to keep a highly functioning public debate and people making decisions based on good information,” he told the ABC on Monday.
There are concerns that if the Australian government does move to designate Meta under its news media bargaining code, forcing the company to negotiate payment deals with news publishers, then Meta will block news content in Australia. News content has been blocked on Facebook in Canada since August and was briefly blocked in Australia in 2021 during initial negotiations over the legislation.
Smaller publishers have warned that they would be most harmed if that was the outcome.
The executive director of the Local and Independent News Association, Claire Stuchbery, said on Monday the government should support any financial loss suffered as a result.
“Local newsrooms have everything to lose but very little to gain from designation,” Stuchbery said. “Not only would this affect the viability of existing news publishers but the ability of new organisations and publishers to start up and build their audience would be hampered in the future, further consolidating what is already one of the most concentrated media markets in the world.
“Government has a responsibility to help guarantee public access to healthy and diverse information and communications systems, and financial support should be provided to newsrooms should Meta be designated.”
Smaller publishers have also called for “must carry” legislation to be developed and applied to Meta to force the company to present news on its platforms. Currently Meta claims just 3% of content users’ engagement with on Facebook is related to news after changes to its algorithm that prioritised content from friends and family.
Last month Meta introduced a requirement that users to manually opt in to see what it deems to be political content in their Instagram recommendations and suggestions feeds. The company has said it plans on rolling this out to Facebook in the future.
