Meta has told Australian publishers that it will stop using human news editors on Facebook before the end of the year to save costs.
The technology giant has told news sites that it cannot afford to spend money in areas that it believes users are not interested in.
Andy Hunter, Meta’s local news partnerships boss, told media companies on Thursday about the company’s plan to move to automated news content.
There will be changes to the small local team who pick stories from the platform’s news tab. It will not affect the existing deals with Aussie media companies for use of their news content.
“Along with European curation deals expiring, we plan to end our in-house curation of Facebook News in Australia by the end of the year,” a Meta spokesperson told The Sydney Morning Herald.
“This update will have no impact on our commercial deals and the Facebook News product will still be accessible in Australia.”
The decision reverses a 2019 decision to recruit journalists to work on the News Tab, which serves Facebook mobile users recent and relevant stories. However, there are no plans to remove the News Tab.
Meta apparently told publishers that it would reallocate resources away from news and towards other, more engaging areas such as short-form video.
However, Meta was a vocal critic of the News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code which was introduced last year, which required platforms like Facebook and Google to pay for news content in Australia. New Zealand is also planning a similar move which would force Meta and Google into commerical negotiations with news publishers in the country.
“The Code will ensure that news media businesses are fairly remunerated for the content they generate, helping to sustain public interest journalism in Australia,” said former Australian treasurer Josh Frydenberg and communications minister Paul Fletcher, when the bargaining code was introduced.
