CALIFORNIA, U.S. - In what appeared to be a reaction to the recent changes introduced by Facebook, digital publisher Vox Media fired about 50 of its employees.

According to reports, most of the job losses were from the publisher's social video teams at Racked, Curbed and SB Nation.

The company fired about 5 percent of its staff or about 50 employees, making it the latest digital publisher to scale back on social video after Facebook decided to reduce publisher content in its news feed.

Further, reports noted that an additional 12 people will be offered role changes.

Vox Media Chief Executive Jim Bankoff wrote in a memo to employees on Wednesday that the layoffs were prompted by the realization that social video initiatives won't be "viable audience or revenue growth drivers" relative to other investments, given industry changes over the past few months and the company's own budgeting process.

Bankoff wrote, "Building a company requires us to take calculated risks. I take responsibility for bets that don't work out."

Bankoff said that the company hit its plan last year and that scaling back certain initiatives is about "being proactive and disciplined about our long term budgets."

Bankoff pointed out that over the last two years, Vox Media has grown quickly, with its head count more than doubling to almost 1,000 employees. 

Further, the company has launched new initiatives including a podcast network and deals with video streaming services such as Netflix.

However, apart from Vox, several other digital publishers, including Refinery29, BuzzFeed, CNN Digital and Independent Journal Review, have laid off staff in recent months. 

According to experts, a major factor leading to layoffs has been a decline in referral traffic to news publishers from Facebook.

Facebook announced in January this year that it would prioritize posts that are shared and discussed among users and their friends - in a change that came as a blow to publishers who rely on the social media platform to reach customers. 

Facebook said at the time that the change will result in news accounting for about 4 percent of posts in users' feeds world-wide, down from about 5 percent. 

The social media network also stated that it would start ranking news outlets based on users' perception of their credibility to help emphasize trusted sources.