The group paid millions of dollars to American publishers to feed this tab. In France, the contracts run until the end of 2024.
The rumor had been swirling for a month. It is now official. Campbell Brown, director of media partnerships at Meta, announced that the engineering and product teams working on the Facebook News tabs, as well as the Bulletin newsletter service, will be reassigned to other projects, the Wall Street Journal reveals. . This news only concerns the United States, at least initially.
Meta affirms to Figaro that this reallocation of resources does not mean a closure of the Facebook News tab.
Facebook News was launched in 2019 in North America. For the first time, the social network entered into commercial contracts with press publishers to be able to highlight their articles in this section. It also allowed its users to read certain content reserved for subscribers of these press titles for free. Facebook would have paid between 10 and 20 million dollars a year to the New York Times, the Washington Post or the Wall Street Journal to take over their articles.
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France is not concerned
The aim of Facebook News was to respond to the anger of newspaper publishers, frustrated to see Google and Facebook dominating the digital advertising market. But the contracts signed in 2019 are about to expire and Facebook does not intend to extend the experience.
According to Campbell Brown’s message to his teams, the budgets will be reallocated to initiatives aimed at content creators, whether it involves paying them directly to encourage them to publish on Instagram or developing new services to allow them to identify new sources of monetization (e-commerce, fan donations, subscriptions, etc.).
“We regularly re-evaluate the products we offer to ensure we’re focusing on the most meaningful experiences for Facebook users and the future of our business.“Comments a spokesperson with Le Figaro. The group’s current priority is to get stronger on short videos in order to resist the growing popularity of TikTok.
Meta points out that France is not affected by a shutdown of Facebook News. This tab appeared on the social network at the start of 2022 and the agreements entered into with the French media are for a period of three years. According to our information, the contracts provide that Meta will continue to pay money to news publishers until the end of 2024, even if the Facebook News service were to disappear in the meantime.
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The American group has also entered into agreements with French press groups in order to pay them compensation under the name of the law on related rights. The latter has no time limit.
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