San Francisco, February 19 : Inspired by Elon Musk-run Twitter, Meta on Sunday announced it is testing paid verification for Instagram and Facebook for $11.99 per month for the web and $14.99 per month for mobile.
Meta Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that a “Meta Verified” account will grant users a verified badge, increased visibility on the platforms, prioritised customer support, and more.
The company is first rolling out the feature to Australia and New Zealand and it will arrive in more countries “soon.”
“This week we’re starting to roll out Meta Verified – a subscription service that lets you verify your account with a government ID, get a blue badge, get extra impersonation protection against accounts claiming to be you, and get direct access to customer support,” Zuckerberg said in an Instagram post.
“This new feature is about increasing authenticity and security across our services,” he added.
For Meta Verified, the user needs to meet minimum activity requirements, be at least 18 years of age or older, and submit a government ID.
However, Facebook helped establish the dominant model of large platforms on the internet today, which sees users benefit from “free” services that collect their data to sell personalized ad space.
It is a model that has earned the company, along with other advertising titans such as Google, tens of billions of dollars a year.
For years the Facebook homepage proudly declared that the site was “free and always will be.”
But in 2019 the company quietly ditched the slogan. At the time experts suggested it was because the value of users’ personal data meant the site was never truly free.
In 2022, Meta saw its ad revenue decline for the first time since the California-based group went public in 2012.
The company recently announced that the number of Facebook’s daily users hit two billion — but between inflation eating into advertisers’ budgets and fierce competition from apps such as TikTok, those users are not bringing in as much revenue as they used to.
The company has also suffered from regulatory changes introduced by iPhone maker Apple, which restrict the ability of social networks to collect data and sell advertising.
Similar factors have already pushed other networks, from Reddit to Snapchat as well as Twitter, to launch paid plans.
Meta is also under pressure for making a huge gamble on the metaverse, the world of virtual reality that Zuckerberg believes will be the next frontier online.
-Dr. M Shahid Siddiqui (PhD), Follow via Twitter @shahidsiddiqui
