Legend Reveals Publisher Referrals From Facebook Have Declined by 50%

It appears that Meta is certainly considering its shift away from news feed with a new report from Chartbeat and Similarweb showing that Facebook referral traffic to publisher websites has declined by 50% over the past year.

The file analyzed online traffic to 792 news and media websites, using third-party tracking data to provide an indicative measure of Facebook referral traffic.

And the trends are sure.

As reported by Press Gazette:

“Aggregate Facebook online page visitors to records and media sites which had been tracked by the Chartbeat since 2018 shows that referrals to the sites have plunged by 58% in the final six years from 1.3 billion in March 2018 to 561 million final month. Online page online page visitors from Facebook fell by 50% in the final 12 months alone because the decline shows no sign of slowing.”

The records also suggest that, by way of total referrals, Facebook now drives less than a quarter of the visits it did in 2018, down from 30% in March 2018 to 7% in March 2024.

As you can see in the above chart, smaller publishers were hit especially hard, with their Facebook referrals declining sharply over the past year.

Meta has been frequently reducing the presence of news content in its apps, with the company ending its Facebook News initiativewhich had been its primary support stream for news publishers, in December last year.

More recently, Meta announced that it was seeking to reduce the reach of political content in its apps, in order to facilitate a more positive user experience, which also involves making political content opt-in by default.

The gradual shift toward AI-recommended updates, primarily video clips, in user feeds has enabled Meta to lower its reliance on news posts. That, in part, is because it’s no longer seeking to accommodate user engagement (i.e., comments and likes) as the driver of content reach, with time spent now playing a much larger role in determining what its algorithms prioritize to highlight and distribute to more people.

Because over time, people are engaging less and less in its apps. As a result, Meta is realigning itself around entertainment, and keeping users glued to its apps through compelling video updates, which also provides the added benefit of reducing angst and debate, which is often tied to political content.

Indeed, back in 2021, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg noted that:

“Undoubtedly one of the top pieces of feedback we’re hearing from our community right now is that people don’t want politics and conflict to take over their experience on our products and services.”

That was shortly after the Capitol riots, which resulted in Zuckerberg being hauled before Congress to answer questions about the role his platforms played in the incident.

It was the second time that Zuckerberg had been questioned by lawmakers over the political influence of his apps. And that, reportedly, was one time too many for Zuck’s liking, because that was undoubtedly the beginning of Meta’s explorations into removing news and politics entirely and distancing itself from such concerns.

And clearly, that’s now having a significant impact on news publishers (SMT included), but on balance, that may well be a definite shift overall, concerning the broader impacts.

Although it is hurting the bottom lines of some publishers.

For years, Facebook has been identified as a key disseminator of misinformation, and with a third of all American adults getting at least some of their daily news from the platform, the role that Facebook can play in this regard could well be significant. That’s why Russian and Chinese influence operations have long targeted Facebook as their primary medium of choice, with the hope being that they can shift voter behavior in other regions through Facebook’s vast reach.

However, if Facebook doesn’t show people news at all, that will make things much more difficult, while also reducing scrutiny on Meta more broadly, and helping it avoid negative headlines.

And if Meta could perhaps also adopt a scheme to increase user engagement without those extra headaches, that appears to be a substantial gain for Zuck and Co.

It’s the same scheme that Meta is now taking with Threads, its Twitter competitor app, by specializing in amplifying more positive, light-hearted, entertainment-based content, instead of political debate. Which seems like it shouldn’t work, however Threads is growing and Meta appears satisfied with its progress so far.

Overall, if Meta can stay away from news and politics, it logically could well remain so, as that’s both what many users say they want, and what brings Meta the least scrutiny from a regulatory standpoint.

It’s not great news for publishers, but it could well make social media, more broadly, a more positive and genuinely enjoyable experience.