Facebook announced the launch of a new feature on Friday that allows users to pay to promote their friends' posts. In return for a fee, Facebook promotes the post so that more people see it.
Promoted posts don't function outside of Facebook's regular privacy settings, so people who can't normally see a status update won't be able to see posts that have been promoted.
Still, the new feature has already sparked privacy concerns because you don't have to give your consent for a post to be promoted by one of your friends.
Facebook insists the new feature is intended to be helpful to users, giving friends the opportunity, for example, to promote posts about charitable activities: "If your friend is running a marathon for charity and has posted that information publicly, you can help that friend by promoting their post to all of your friends," Facebook said in a statement.
But users could just as easily promote embarrassing status updates in jest or out of cruelty.
To use the new feature, which applies to users with fewer than 5,000 friends and subscribers, you select the drop-down menu on the top-right corner of a friend's status update, select "promote and share", and pay the $7 fee. (Facebook is experimenting with the price.)
The launch of the feature illustrates how Facebook regards status updates: commodities that can be monetized. Whether or not the feature will generate any significant revenue for the company still remains to be seen, however.
Rumor has it that Linkedin is experimenting with a similar feature too, with a roll-out expected some time this year.
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