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Facebook's parent company, Meta, is running a small-scale trial where users without a paid subscription may be limited to sharing only two links to other sites per month.

The Trial's Parameters

This experiment currently involves a subset of Facebook pages operating in Professional Mode, which is typically utilized by creators and influencers to earn money from their posts. While news organizations are not part of this test, the broader impact could prove substantial.

"Beginning 16 December, certain Facebook profiles without Meta Verified will be limited to sharing two organic posts per month."

Stepping Back from News

This action comes after Meta's multi-year deliberately retreating from news distribution. Industry analysts note that after ending deals to pay publishers and restricting news sharing in Canada, Meta has signaled strongly that news is not a priority.

Media companies already experienced a massive drop in website visitors following a 2023 decision to de-prioritise news in favor of more videos and viral content. Although visits were starting to rebound in 2024, it remained down by around 50% compared to the previous year.

Driving Verified Sign-ups

The new test is understood to be a wider effort to encourage users to sign up for Meta Verified. This subscription service ranges in price from £9.99 to nearly £400 monthly and offers extra features like a verified badge and improved account protection.

• A company representative said: "This is a limited test to understand whether the option to post an increased volume of posts with links provides extra benefit for paying users."
• Some experts suggest this shift towards monetization may be connected with Meta's expensive ventures in other areas, like the virtual reality and artificial intelligence.

A Potential Silver Lining?

Interestingly that in January, Meta announced a shift towards a more personalized approach for political content. Subsequent analysis indicated this could have resulted in more news content showing up again for some users.

As one instance, traffic from Facebook to certain newspaper websites was said to increase significantly in the first part of 2025.

Ultimately, this test highlights the continuing struggle between giant tech networks seeking fresh income sources and news organizations that depend upon them for readers and visibility.