Meta is testing a limit for link posts
Professional users and page operators can post links in a Facebook post twice more per day. More costs money.
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Meta is apparently experimenting with a link limit for Facebook. Several users are reporting this. Social media expert Matt Navarra has also summarized what has already been noticed in a thread. Anyone who wants to post more than two links a day must have a verified account – and that costs money.
Meta has confirmed to TechCrunch that the tests so far only affect people using the professional mode and Facebook Pages. Professional means that you have converted your personal account into a creator account, which leads to you being discovered by more people. So it's only about so-called organic posts. Affiliate links and comments are still possible without limits. Other Meta platforms – Threads, Instagram, and WhatsApp – are apparently excluded from the tests for now.
Publishers are excluded
In addition to creators, such a step would initially also impact brands. They like to link to their pages and shops frequently, where they promote products. It is unclear what will happen to the many spam posts from dubious websites. Generative AI has ensured that there are even more links to supposed news sites or other fake pages with various intentions. These could also only play out links via a paid account.
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According to Meta, publishers are not affected by the tests so far. They use links on Facebook to draw attention to their content. For a long time, there has been a dispute over whether this type of link primarily helps Facebook to be more attractive to users or whether Facebook is rather helping publishers by directing people from Facebook to their pages. Apparently this thorny issue is not to be tackled for now. With the advent of AI chatbots like Meta AI, but also ChatGPT and Google's AI overviews and AI mode in search, the topic is particularly current again.
(emw)
