Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg promised some big changes would be coming to the social network in 2018. On Friday, one of the site’s biggest changes was announced.
Alex Hardiman, Facebook‘s head of news products, announced in a post that the Trending section introduced to the site’s front page in 2014 will be removed next week.
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“We introduced Trending in 2014 as a way to help people discover news topics that were popular across the Facebook community,” Hardiman wrote. “However, it was only available in five countries and accounted for less than 1.5 percent of clicks to news publishers on average. From research we found that over time people found the product to be less and less useful. We will remove Trending from Facebook next week and we will also remove products and third-party partner integrations that rely on the Trends API.”
The section found its share of controversies over the years, often being caught promoting misleading stories. Gizmodo reported in 2016 that the contract workers operating the section gave it a political slant, choosing not to link to news that was slanted towards conservatives. Facebook fired its human curators in response to the report.
“We’ve seen that the way people consume news on Facebook is changing to be primarily on mobile and increasingly through news video,” Hardiman said. “So we’re 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.”
Hardiman provided some examples of what the site may replace the section with in the near future. The site is reportedly testing two news sections with the “Breaking News Lable” and “Today In.”
“A test we’re running with 80 publishers across North America, South America, Europe, India and Australia lets publishers put a ‘breaking news’ indicator on their posts in News Feed,” Hardiman wrote. “We’re also testing breaking news notifications.”
“We’re testing a dedicated section on Facebook called Today In that connects people to the latest breaking and important news from local publishers in their city, as well as updates from local officials and organizations,” he continued.
The site is also reportedly working on a live coverage news section as part of Facebook Watch.
Zuckerberg put out a press release in early January promising Facebook users that the site would be returning to its roots as a social network rather than a major news source.
“We built Facebook to help people stay connected and bring us closer together with the people that matter to us,” Zuckerberg wrote. “That’s why we’ve always put friends and family at the core of the experience. Research shows that strengthening our relationships improves our well-being and happiness.
“But recently we’ve gotten feedback from our community that public content — posts from businesses, brands and media — is crowding out the personal moments that lead us to connect more with each other,” he continued.
