After years of criticism for the way Meta handles misinformation and political polarisation, the move to stop providing Facebook news is an attempt to curtail the quantity of overall news and political content available.

In the U.S. and Australia, the proportion of consumers who use Facebook News dropped by more than 80% last year, and less than 3% of people worldwide consume news in their feeds. 

The feature was discontinued last year in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. 

The changes made to the Facebook News feature won't impact Meta's other products in these countries. 

Links to news articles on Facebook will remain accessible to users. 

News outlets will continue to have access to their Facebook pages and accounts, where they can share links to their articles and drive users to their websites.

According to Meta, its fact-checking network and disinformation review are unaffected by the changes made to the News tab. Learn more about Facebook updates and advertising.