Meta to shut down Facebook instant articles by mid 2023

Meta to shut down the Facebook instant article feature by mid-2023 after serving news junkies for seven years.

A Meta spokesperson confirmed the news in an email to Gizmodo that it had notified its publishers that it would stop supporting the service of instant articles by mid-April 2023.

Facebook instant articles were intended to load quickly on mobile phones. When this feature was introduced Meta claimed that it would “load and display 10 times faster than the standard mobile web.”

At that time it was beneficial to Facebook but now that arrangement no longer makes business sense for Facebook.

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“Currently less than 3% of what people around the world see in Facebook’s Feed posts with links to news articles,” the spokesperson told Gizmodo “And as we said earlier this year, as a business it doesn’t make sense to over-invest in areas that don’t align with user preferences.”

This move from Meta shows their intentions and plan of moving away from hard-core news and more into video content.

After the shutdown notification, the publishers now have 6 months to find out an alternative strategy.