That’s the big reversal here, given that “traffic and referrals” were roughly 99 percent of what Facebook had to offer publishers over the past half-decade or so. It was that firehose of eyeballs that led to new editorial strategies designed for share-friendly content, as well as the thought that maybe digital advertising could pay the bills after all. Facebook has spent most of the last year reducing the amount of traffic it sends publishers, first through unspoken tweaks in 2017 and then with a series of announced changes in early 2018.
