Similarweb has released new data that shows traffic referrals to the top global news sites from Facebook and X (the app formerly known as Twitter) have collapsed over the past year. An Axios breakdown says Facebook referrals to news websites have declined by around 80% since September 2020, while X traffic has shrunk by around 60% in the same period. Link views on Facebook are down 50% over the past two years, according to Meta’s own data, as social platforms follow TikTok’s lead and lean into AI-based content recommendations, while X has moved to limit link views to encourage more direct posting on the app.