Meta, the owner of this social network, has confirmed that it is conducting “limited testing” in which users without a paid subscription to Meta Verified, whose price is around 12 euros per month, can publish only two external links per month, writes The Guardian.
The test appears to include a portion of Facebook pages and user profiles that use “Professional Mode,” intended primarily for content creators who monetize their posts. Although media organizations are not yet directly involved in the test, the move could hit them hard as it could prevent readers from sharing their content.
Publishers have already seen a huge drop in internet traffic following Meta’s decision in 2023 to deprioritize news and shift its focus to videos and viral, short-form content.
Traffic from Facebook to news portals has been partially recovering this year, but according to some measurements, in 2024 it fell by up to 50 percent compared to the previous year.
The latest test is part of Meta’s campaign to encourage Facebook users to subscribe to the Meta Verified service, the price of which varies from 12 euros to almost 500 euros per profile per month, depending on the service level. Subscription offers additional account functions and a higher level of security.
In screenshots shared by users, Facebook warns:
“Starting December 16th, certain Facebook profiles without a Meta Verified subscription will be limited to sharing two organic (ie free) posts per month. Subscribe to Meta Verified to share more links on Facebook, with a verified badge and additional benefits.”
David Buttle, founder of media consultancy DJB Strategies, said Meta had been “deliberately withdrawing from the news sector for several years”.
“After pulling out of paying publishers and completely blocking news links in Canada in response to regulation, Meta has made it clear that news is no longer strategically important,” Buttle said.
“This latest experiment – which excludes publishers for now – further reinforces the shift away from free distribution to monetizing reach as Meta looks to extract more value from its existing platforms. This could be linked to its costly and widely acknowledged failure in the metaverse as it now doubles down on AI efforts,” he added.
Meta’s spokesperson said:
“This is limited testing to understand whether the ability to publish more posts with links adds value to subscribers of the Meta Verified service.”
As a reminder, Meta announced in January that it will “apply a more personalized approach to political content, so that users who want to see more such content will be able to do so in their feeds.”
According to analyzes by Press Gazette and Similarweb, the move appears to have resulted in more news stories resurfacing. One of the biggest winners was the British Express, whose traffic from Facebook grew by 26 percent year-on-year, and in March this social network accounted for as much as 75 percent of its total traffic from social networks.
(Vijesti.ba)
