Satirical website Bis-Serjetà is going behind a paywall, as its founder seeks to reverse a drop in readership caused by Facebook’s mysterious algorithm.

Matthew Bonanno told the site’s fans on Monday that all future articles published by Bis-Serjetà would only be available to subscribers who contribute to the site via Patreon.

“I'm tired of the Facebook algorithm only showing stuff to a fraction of followers, and I want to make this my main source of income,” Bonanno wrote in a message sent out on Monday morning.

In comments to Times of Malta, he hinted that he might shut down Bis-Serjetà  for good if there is little interest in subscribing.

“I’m not entitled to money just because I write stuff, but neither are people entitled to free entertainment,” he said. “Facebook is also not entitled to me adding value to their website for nothing in return.”

Bis-Serjetà is Malta’s only satirical news site and has been running for more than a decade.

Drawing inspiration from US satirical behemoth The Onion, it pokes fun at Maltese celebrities and politicians and reimagines current affairs in amusing – and sometimes surreal – ways.

At times, readers have failed to get the joke: just last week, Malta Public Transport implied it might sue the website for using its logo in a satirical article. Bonanno was also hauled to court for suggesting an evangelical group's headquarters should be carpet bombed. 

For years, Bonanno ran the website as a hobby and managed to pay the bills by advertising revenue he pocketed by driving traffic to the site from social media.

Facebook, which remains Malta’s most popular social media platform and where Bis-Serjetà has over 38,000 followers, was an especially important source of traffic.

But Facebook’s parent company, Meta, has been gradually deprioritising news content. It now says that news makes up just 3% of content shown to its users.

While Bis-Serjetà's satirical content is more comedy than news, Facebook does not appear to make that distinction.

As a result, the vast majority of Bis-Serjetà posts are no longer being shown to most of its Facebook followers.

“Facebook has decided to take a massive shit on content creators and only shows their work to a fraction of their followers,” the website told readers in an article announcing the paywall shift.

Speaking to Times of Malta, Bonanno said he was tired of “second-guessing” Facebook’s algorithm.

“It’s like a god that demands you to worship it, but it never tells you how best to satisfy it,” he said.

“I think this is a feeling shared by a lot of content creators these days. One day you think you have it figured out, and the next it throttles your post for seemingly no reason.”

The shift, coupled with Bonanno’s years-long desire to make Bis-Serjetà his full-time job, prompted him to act.

Only paying subscribers will now be able to read Bis-Serjetà articles, though Bonanno said that he will continue to post meme pics and headlines to social media for free. Subscriptions start from €3 per month, with discounts for 12-month signups.

Bis-Serjetà launched its page on Patreon – an internet monetisation platform where content creators can receive recurring payments from their fans – back in 2019.

But with little incentive to subscribe, the initiative gained little traction. As of Monday morning, Bis-Serjetà was only earning €333 a month through the platform.

Bonanno admitted he does not know if his new strategy will work, saying he would need to see how things pan out this month.

“Then I’ll have to make a difficult choice in April,” he told Times of Malta, hinting that if subscriptions don’t pick up, it could be the end of the 13-year-old satirical site.

"I'm sure the various Labour trolls, religious nut jobs and far-right lunatics will be delighted if I have to quit," he added mischievously.