Facebook this week initiated one of the most controversial changes in its recent history, directly targeting the way individuals share information. From last Tuesday, December 16th, a considerable number of users — specifically those who use “Professional Mode” in their profiles or who manage pages — are now limited to just two publications with external links per month. To overcome this barrier and share content unlimitedly, the platform now requires a subscription to the paid Meta Verified service.
The nuance of the measure lies in the fact that the restriction falls on those who share and not necessarily on those who produce the information. Although major media outlets and newspapers (publishers) continue, for now, to be exempt from limits on their own official pages, individual readers who use professional profiles lose the ability to disseminate that same news in an unlimited manner. In practice, if a user wants to share three different newspaper articles in a month on their professional profile, they will be prevented from doing so on the third attempt, unless they pay a monthly fee. This strategy attacks the organic virality of professional content, since the circulation of information on the social network depends heavily on users’ individual sharing initiative.
For users in Portugal, the costs of this “freedom to share” are already defined: The basic Meta Verified subscription costs 13.99 euros per month if purchased via the web, rising to 16.99 euros if payment is made via iOS or Android applications.
For larger-scale creators or small businesses that require additional visibility guarantees, Meta introduced the Meta Max plan, whose prices can reach 499 euros per month. For most independent users, bloggers and independent professionals, these values represent an economic barrier that now makes Facebook a platform in which it is necessary to pay to participate, at least fully.
Meta, in its official communication, justifies this test as a way of “understanding the added value” for its subscribers, but industry analysts see the measure as an attempt to force the retention of users within the application — that is, force content creators to do so within the platform, penalizing them for trying to take the audience outside the Meta ecosystem.
The company favors native content such as Reels or photos, which are not subject to any restrictions.
One way to get around blocking, free of charge, is to place links in the comments section, a practice that Meta still allows, but which may also be subject to limitations in the near future.
This individual restriction policy comes at a time of great regulatory tension in Europe. Under the Digital Markets Regulation (DMA), the European Union has required North American technology giants to facilitate the free movement of information and competition. It remains to be seen whether the imposition of such a narrow limit on individual link sharing will be interpreted by Brussels as a form of economic censorship or abuse of a dominant position, especially by harming the visibility of external information sources in favor of content controlled by the platform itself.