Meta has reportedly been cutting the aid to news publishers on its platform, who push their news articles in Facebook’s News Tab.
This is reportedly linked to Meta’s fall in revenue in the recent quarter, forcing the company to cut off the funding to news outlets. This was soon confirmed by a spokesperson, who noted that most people don’t come to Facebook for news, so there’s no point in investing in them.
Cutting The Unnecessary Investments
Several tech giants face significant losses amidst the economic uncertainties, triggering them to cut costs wherever possible. We’ve seen companies like Google, Meta, OpenSea, etc., laying off people or slowing down the hiring process – just to cut the costs.
But some are going further to save even more. As Axios reported, Meta decided not to pay news publishers in the US for their content to run in Facebook’s News Tab. This comes after the company released its Q2 2022 earnings report, noting a fall in revenue for the first time in its history!
Soon, a Meta spokesperson responded, saying, “Most people do not come to Facebook for news, and as a business, it doesn’t make sense to over-invest in areas that don’t align with user preferences.”
To boost the news content on its platform, Facebook made deals with several publishers around the world and even hired journalists to bring traffic to its News tab. Accordingly, Facebook spent paid $20 million to The New York Times, $10 million to The Wall Street Journal, and $3 million to CNN.
Also, with an Australian law forcing aggregators to pay for sourcing third-party news on their platform, Facebook partnered with Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp to serve news in Australia. In the UK, the company also made similar deals with The Guardian and The Economist.
