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Why Some Facebook Users Will Now Have To Pay A Monthly Fee
A new move from Meta could see current Facebook and Instagram users pay £3.99 a month.
In the coming weeks, Meta users will be offered the choice to pay £2.99/month on web or £3.99/month on iOS and Android.
The fee will cover all Facebook and Instagram accounts registered with the Meta Accounts Center.
It comes as a major reversal in strategy for CEO and tech giant Mark Zuckerberg, who had previously claimed Facebook would never charge its users.
However, he has noted that the change is necessary due to new regulations from the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).
The charge will be optional, and as a result, those who pay the fee will avoid being targeted with personalized adverts.
In a statement, Meta said: “It will give people in the UK a clear choice about whether their data is used for personalised advertising.”
All UK users over the age of 18 will see a notification offering the choice to subscribe to Facebook and Instagram to avoid being targeted with adverts.
However, non-subscribing users will still have the ability to influence their advertisement choices through the ‘Ads Preferences’ settings.
Prior to the controversial announcement, speaking before Congress in 2018, Zuckerberg was very clear about keeping Facebook free for all.
He said: “There will always be a version of Facebook that is free.”
The new UK regulations require that customers are given ‘meaningful transparency and choice about how their information is used.’
Both apps have more than three billion users around the world, so it’s safe to say the new, albeit optional, fee will definitely get people talking.
The Meta statement continued: “The experience for those who choose to use our services for free will not change.
“They will continue to see ads on our platforms and will still be able to control their ads experience.”
But the UK isn’t the first to see this kind of change.
Meta already offers subscriptions for Facebook and Instagram in the EU, which costs €5.99 (£5.24) on the web and €7.99 (£6.99) on iOS and Android.
However, the tech giant doesn’t currently offer an ad-free subscription option in the US.
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