Meta to launch £3.99 monthly subscription for ad-free experience

Facebook and Instagram users will soon be able to enjoy the social media platforms without seeing a single ad – at a price.

Meta, which owns both platforms as well as Threads and WhatsApp, announced plans today to introduce an ad-free subscription service.

Web users will be charged £2.99 a month and mobile phone users £3.99 a month to be able to doomscroll without seeing ads.

If the accounts are linked, users only need to pay one monthly fee.

Phone users will be charged more because of subscription fees levied by Apple and Alphabet, which owns Google (Picture: Anna Barclay/Getty Images)

Adverts on both platforms are typically slipped into people’s feeds and flagged as ‘sponsored’.

Adverts are also tucked inside Facebook and Instagram Stories as well as Instagram’s short-video function, Reels.

With an estimated eight million advertisers on Facebook alone, these ads aren’t crammed into your feeds at random – they’re ‘personalised’.

This means the ads shown are tailored to your interests, which Meta does by using personal data. 

Meta said in a news release today that the ad-free version will be rolled out in the ‘coming weeks’.

It added: ‘This will give people based in the UK the choice between continuing to use Facebook and Instagram for free with personalised ads, or subscribing to stop seeing ads.

Regulators worry that personalised ads infringe on user privacy (Picture: Shutterstock/Thaspol Sangsee)

‘We will notify UK users over the age of 18 that they have the choice to subscribe to Facebook and Instagram for a fee to use these services without seeing ads.

‘The notification will be dismissible at first, allowing existing users time to consider their options before a decision is required.’

If users don’t pay up, Meta will continue to show them ads, though they will be able to ‘control their ad experiences’ in account settings.

Users give Meta legal permission to collect their data for personalised advertising after they agree to the company’s lengthy terms-of-service agreement to gain access to Meta services.

The terms say: ‘We use your personal data, such as information about your activity and interests, to show you personalised ads and sponsored content that may be more relevant to you.’

But Meta’s advertising-based business model has drawn scrutiny in recent years from regulators who say it forces users to accept personalised ads.

Regulators said that Instagram and Facebook are so widely used that people have to choose to either hand over their data or not be on the apps.

Tanya O’Carroll, a human rights campaigner, lodged a lawsuit against Meta in 2022, claiming the company breached UK data laws by doing this.

O’Carroll argued that personalised ads hinging on user data amounts to ‘surveillance’. Collected data includes their activities and interactions, off-platform browsing data and their location, among others.

The UK’s data watchdog, the Information Commissioner’s Office, agreed with O’Caroll, saying Meta was violating a European privacy law known as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Both sides settled the lawsuit in March, which included Meta committing to stop using O’Carroll’s personal data to target her with bespoke ads.

Meta was similarly slapped with a €200 million in April after European Union (EU) regulars said the ad model breached the bloc’s antitrust rules.

Meta, which previously said it denied all of O’Caroll’s claims, said today that it is offering a subscription in response to the ICO’s guidance.

‘It will give people in the UK a clear choice about whether their data is used for personalised advertising, while preserving the free access and value that the ads-supported internet creates for people, businesses and platforms,’ it added.

‘We continue to believe in an ad-supported internet, which ensures free access to personalised products and services for all.’