Facebook To Charge Users To View Their Own Posts

SOCIAL Network giant Facebook has started testing a system that charges users to view their own posts.

The ‘promote to yourself’ system is currently being trialled in America, and stops users seeing their own posts unless they pay a small fee of $7.

The world’s largest on-line community, which announced last month that it has crossed the billion-user mark, has struggled to make money from its enormous pool of users. In a bold bid to rake in revenue, they have decided to push individual users into advertising to themselves.

“What the actual fuck are they doing?” asked James Thomand, CEO of Waterford technology firm Deisebites. “Why in the name of Bono would I want to write a post and then pay to see it?”

Facebook said it was using a series of different prices in the trial, and is also offering a free option to ‘sad people’ with 100 friends or less.

Facebook spokesman Gerry Fields confirmed that users will still be able to write their status updates for free, but once they are published they will have to pay the charge to see how many likes or comments they got.

In addition to the new system, friends will also have to pay an equal fee of $7 to like the post and a further $3 to comment.

“We’re constantly testing users tolerance levels across the site. This particular test is simply to gauge people’s stupidity and find out if they are actually gullible enough to pay to see their own posts.” he said.

However, some facebook members expressed their anger at the idea, fearing what the unknown, unpaid for posts will bring.

“What if I publish a post and don’t pay to see it, and then my friends don’t pay either? It will just be floating there on its own in some kind of sick facebook purgatory!” concluded one user.

The new promote to yourself feature is expected to be rolled out across the board in 2013.