The article shows a fundamental misunderstanding how Facebook filtering works. If Facebook didn't have any kind of filtering on page updates then they'd flood out friend updates which are much more important.<p>The likelihood that a particular fanpage update will get filtered out for an individual user is dependent on how the user has interacted with the fanpage in the past. If a user frequently clicks through/comments/etc on updates from a fanpage then updates from that fanpage are far less likely to get filtered out.<p>The whole sponsored stories thing was introduced a long time after Facebook had started doing filtering.<p>Saying that the filtering is a conspiracy to help Facebook make money may well be libelous.
I'm going to repeat what ig1 said but it bears repeating: I'm forced to correct musicians all the time on this: EVERY SINGLE THING is filtered by Facebook based on what they think you want to see. If you're not interacting with a band, they show it less frequently. Same thing with friends, TV shows, everything.<p>This rumor that FB is doing this to charge bands infuriates me on a daily basis. The ability to pay to show to all fans is a great way to tell FB a post is really important. Only money can keep that honest.