Meta plans to replace human journalists with AI

Tech giant Meta is planning to stop human curation of the Facebook News tab and replace it with artificial intelligencer.

Meta will stop using journalists to curate its news section and instead leverage algorithms. In the UK, Meta will end a contract with Upday which involves a team of 15 journalists curating the aggregated content on the tab.

Meta first introduced the News Tab in 2019 in the US and The Media Leader understands less than 3% of what people see in Feed are posts with links to news articles and Facebook News has always been primarily algorithmic.

This comes as Meta prioritises short-form creator-driven video to compete with TikTok, based on insight that links to news content is not the reason the most people visit the platform. Instagram Reels is its fastest-growing content format on its platforms

Meta is also facing upcoming legislation in Canada, the UK and US which may make it follow the Australian model and pay publishers for content on its platform.

A Meta spokesperson said: “We are always evaluating our global curation partnerships based on user and product needs.”