Facebook to Shut Down Bulletin Subscription Newsletter Service

Facebook will be shutting down the Bulletin subscription service it had been using to compete with Substack and other popular newsletter services, The New York Times wrote Tuesday (Oct. 4).

Facebook said the service will be wound down early next year.

“Bulletin has allowed us to learn about the relationship between creators and their audiences and how to better support them in building their community on Facebook,” the company confirmed in a statement Tuesday. “While this off-platform product itself is ending, we remain committed to supporting these and other creators’ success and growth on our platform.”

Bulletin started in June 2021, drawing independent writers looking to build direct relationships with their readers. The company at the time said the purpose was to support writers with various publishing and subscription tools, including legal resources and design as well.

There were several established writers working on Bulletin, including Malcolm Gladwell, James Hamblin and Erin Andrews, as well as lesser-known names.

While some of the deals were for two-year contracts, they’ll still be paid in full now that the service is being shuttered, and the writers will be able to take their content and subscriber lists with them.

Bulletin showed signs of faltering in July, when Facebook executives said they were shifting resources away from the service and its news offering.

PYMNTS wrote in July about Meta’s phasing out of its exclusive deals with news publishers on Facebook.

Read more: Meta Pulls Payments Plug on News Outlets Publishing on Facebook

The deals were purported to cost some outlets tens of millions of dollars amid Meta’s shift away from news, honing more of a focus on the creator economy.

The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and the Washington Post had signed deals with Facebook, some of them for over $100 million.