Facebook Starts Charging Users To Message Celebs


The vast majority of users in the UK can still send messages to strangers for free, but those involved in the test can see the fee scale ranges from £10.68 for a household name such as Daley to £10.08 to message author Salman Rushdie. Others celebrities like comedians Miranda Hart and Bill Bailey, and culture secretary Jeremy Hunt, are all in the 71 pence standard price bracket.

The experiment was already been launched in U.S. in December, last year, and since then it has been extended to a further 36 countries, that includes U.K. too. However, in January, Facebook was ridiculed for charging $100 (£61) to message founder Mark Zuckerberg.  

Facebook said, though the launch of such scheme is controversial, it was a way of inhibiting spamming for famous people as paid-for messages go straight to the recipient's inbox rather than the "other" folder which receives all communication from people outside a user's circle of friends.

Iain Mackenzie, a spokesman for Facebook Europe, said, "There's not a sliding scale based on fame. You can't infer someone's level of 'celebrity' from the numbers."

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