Kathmandu, 18 Dec: Recently, news has been circulating that social media platform Facebook has stopped content monetization in Nepal. This rumor spread after Facebook pages and creators started seeing notifications such as “Your ability to earn is limited” and “Local legal requirement or government request” on their dashboards. After some media outlets also published reports claiming that “monetization has been stopped,” the belief that Facebook monetization had been shut down spread widely among users. However, the reality is different.
According to representatives of Facebook’s parent company Meta based in the United States, the issue is not that monetization has been stopped, but that changes in Facebook’s policies have caused disruptions to monetization.
What is the problem?
When Facebook first introduced monetization in Nepal, the eligibility criteria were comparatively easy. Under the initial guidelines, creators could monetize their content if they achieved 500,000 engagements within 28 days and had more than 2,000 followers. Because these requirements were relatively simple, many creators in Nepal became eligible for monetization.
However, about five days ago, Meta updated its rules. Under the new policy, to be eligible for monetization, creators must upload at least three Reels within 90 days, have 10,000 followers, and achieve at least 150,000 views within 28 days.
When monetization was launched in Nepal, features such as Stars, Bonuses, and Ads were made available. However, since sending Stars is not common among Nepali users, most creators earned income mainly through content monetization. After the recent update, Facebook has removed live ads (advertisements shown during live streams). Similarly, ads that appeared in Reels (at the bottom or end of Reels) have also been removed.
Pages that were already monetized and enabled received a message from Facebook stating “Content monetization is limited.” The main reason for this message is the reduction in revenue sources. For example, if a creator previously earned income from ten different sources, that number has now been reduced to only two.
Therefore, monetization has not been completely shut down, but the ways to earn income have been restricted, which is why it is described as “limited.” Moreover, since some creators may still be earning from features that are said to have been removed, Facebook’s official statements do not entirely align with creators’ actual earning experiences.
