[xylophoner]

I wonder if FB ever offered or considered letting users link without previews (e.g., choose a word or words of their post to become the link text). It would defuse the way users scan headline/preview/image on the feed (instead of going to the publisher and reading the content). Not sure Australia would have accepted this but I believe it addresses some of their concerns.

[hnick]

You can, unless I am misunderstanding you. When I paste a link the preview pops up and I can hit the traditional (X) in the top right to remove it before posting. It will display the URL in text as a link without a preview.