Facebook will start charging users to post links to the social network in a move that threatens to further erode traffic to news publishers, businesses and bloggers.
The social media site is testing limiting the number of web links users can share to two per month unless they pay £11.99 for a “Meta Verified” subscription.
In screenshots shared by social media users, Facebook warns users: “Starting Dec 16, certain Facebook profiles without Meta Verified will be limited to sharing two organic posts per month. Subscribe to Meta Verified to share more links on Facebook.”
A Meta spokesman said: “This is a limited test to understand whether the ability to publish an increased volume of posts with links adds additional value for Meta Verified subscribers.”
News publishers are not currently being asked to pay the subscription fee. However, the decision risks further curbing social media traffic to news sites by reducing the number of links being shared on social media by other internet users.
Smaller publishers, bloggers and brands are already struggling to adapt to changes to Google’s search tools after the addition of artificial intelligence (AI) summaries.
News brands once relied heavily on social media to drive visitors to their websites, both through their own posts and promotions and through readers spreading links themselves.
However, Facebook, X and LinkedIn have increasingly shunned news traffic, reducing the visibility of external links in an effort to keep users on their app. Instead, social media services are promoting videos and longer posts from users.
Between 2018 and 2024, referrals to top news sites from Facebook plunged by nearly 60pc, according to Chartbeat data, although visitors did recover slightly in 2025.
The drop in traffic prompted hundreds of job cuts across the news industry at groups such as Mirror-publisher Reach, which had relied heavily on viral social media posts to attract readers.
News groups have since moved to lock in readers with subscriptions or keep them within their own apps.
Matt Navarra, a social media consultant, said Facebook’s proposed limit on posting links threatened to hit smaller publishers and influencers “who do not have massive ad budgets”.
“For publishers, this absolutely reinforces a long-term trend that organic referral traffic is becoming less dependable by design,” he said.
He added that Facebook was increasingly becoming “pay to play” for smaller creators and starting to “look like a toll booth” for those who want to build interest in their brand or product.
However, he said the move could help to trim spam traffic on the social network by making it less profitable to flood Facebook with dodgy links.
In a post on Threads, Mr Navarra said the number of links users could post appeared to vary depending on how much they were willing to pay for their Meta subscription.
Some users were being asked to pay for a Meta Max plan, which costs up to $499.99 (£374) per month in the US, in order to keep posting unlimited links.