Meta will restrict access to Facebook News for US and Australian users in early April, reports The Indian EXPRESS. The reason for the suspension of this section of the platform is the effort to reduce content related to news and politics.

“This change does not impact posts from accounts people choose to follow; it impacts what the system recommends, and people can control if they want more,” said Dani Lever, a Meta spokesperson.

In Germany, Great Britain and France, the function was removed already last year. The news section, added in 2019, included the presentation of events by national and international media.

Meta says users will be able to open links to news articles. The media will again be able to publish their links to articles and to their websites.

Leading drivers for the new change to the platform are criticisms leveled at Meta that the company is not doing a good enough job of eliminating misinformation, and that it is contributing to political polarization.

Therefore, Meta has come out with the decision that they have to reduce the political content on their platforms.

“This announcement expands on years of work on how we approach and treat political content based on what people have told us they wanted”, added Dani Lever.

Meta said that restricting access to the News tab will not disrupt the review and verification of content on the disinformation platform.