Facebook today announced that it is removing Trending section from the platform to make way for future news experiences on Facebook. It introduced trending back in 2014 in a way to help users to discover trending news and topics.
Since it was only available in five countries and accounted for less than 1.5% of clicks to news publishers on average, the company has decided to pull the plug finally. With the same intentions, the company will remove Trending from Facebook next week and will also remove products and third-party partner integrations that rely on the Trends API.
Facebook further added that it is exploring new ways to help people stay informed about timely, breaking news that matters to them, while making sure the news they see on Facebook is from trustworthy and quality sources. The company is running a ‘Breaking News Label‘ test with over 80 publishers across North America, South America, Europe, India, and Australia. This lets publishers put a “breaking news” indicator on their posts in News Feed.
It is already known that Facebook is working on a dedicated Today In local news and events section in the app. It will also launch a dedicated section on Facebook Watch in the US where people can view live coverage, daily news briefings.