Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, plans to launch a paid verification service that will give their users a blue checkmark.
“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,” Mark Zuckerberg broadcasted on Instagram.
The bundled Instagram and Facebook service starts at $11.99 a month and $14.99 as an in-app purchase on iOS, which takes into account the 30% that Apple takes for its service. Meta Verified is rolling out in Australia and New Zealand first, with “more countries soon.”
A major selling point of Meta Verified is that it caters to social media creators by offering them “more protection from impersonation with proactive account monitoring for impersonators who might target people with growing online audiences.”
Another benefit of the service is “help when you need it with access to a real person for common account issues.” The service also claims creators will have “increased visibility and reach with prominence” in search, comments and recommendations within the platform.
Meta says that there are no changes to the legacy accounts with verified badges adding that “long term, we want to build a subscription offering that’s valuable to everyone, including creators, businesses and our community at large.”
Meta Verified follows Elon Musk’s decision to give blue badges to users that subscribe to Twitter Blue. The move initially caused chaos at launch as users subscribed to Twitter Blue to impersonate big brands. The difference between Meta and Twitter’s approach is that the latter service doesn’t use an ID to verify its users.
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