Instagram and
Facebook users will now be able to pay for a blue tick verification, parent
company Meta has announced.
Meta Verified
will cost $11.99 (£9.96) a month on web, or $14.99 for iPhone users.
It will be
available in Australia and New Zealand this week.
Mark Zuckerberg,
Meta chief executive, said the move will improve security and authenticity on
the social media apps.
The move comes
after Elon Musk, owner of Twitter, implemented the premium Twitter Blue
subscription in November 2022.
Meta's paid subscription
service is not yet available for businesses, but any individual can pay for
verification.
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Badges - or "blue ticks"- have been used as verification tools for high-profile accounts to signify their authenticity.
The subscription
would give paying users a blue badge, increased visibility of their posts,
protection from impersonators and easier access to customer service, Meta said
in a post on their website.
The company told
the BBC the change would not affect previously verified accounts, but noted
there would be an increase in visibility for some smaller users who become
verified thanks to the paid feature.
Allowing paying
users access to a blue tick has previously caused trouble for other social
media platforms.
Twitter's
pay-for verification feature was paused last November when people started
impersonating big brands and celebrities by paying for the badge.
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Meta said
Instagram and Facebook usernames will have to match a government supplied ID
document to be granted verification, and users will have to have a profile
picture that includes their face.
Other websites
like Reddit, YouTube and Discord similarly use subscription-based models.
Meta has not yet
specified when the feature will be rolled out to other countries, although Mr
Zuckerberg said in a post it would be "soon".
In November, the
company announced 11,000 job losses as a result of over-investment during the
Covid-19 pandemic.
At the time, Mr
Zuckerberg said he had predicted an increase in Meta's growth based on the rise
it had over the pandemic, but that ultimately did not happen.
"Many people
predicted this would be a permanent acceleration," he wrote, "I did
too, so I made the decision to significantly increase our investments."
Instead he said
"macroeconomic downturn" and "increased competition" caused
revenue to be much lower than expected.
"I got this
wrong, and I take responsibility for that," he said at the time.
They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery - and while many in the tech sector were quick to criticise Elon Musk for introducing a paid tier to the social network Twitter, it turns out his peers were watching closely.
Times are tough
for Big Tech, but times are also tough for Big Tech's customers, of course -
that's you and me. Elon Musk's experiment has proved that people are still
prepared to pay for an enhanced experience.
It's often said
of enormous free-to-use digital platforms like Facebook, Instagram and TikTok
that if you're not paying for the product, you are the product.
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That means every
drop of data those businesses gather about you is being used to sell you stuff
in the form of ads. It's a multi-billion dollar idea and it has made a lot of
firms very, very rich.
But people are
waking up to it and voting with their feet.
Apple launched
an optional feature which stops your online activity being tracked and guess
what - it turns out if you ask people whether they mind companies watching what
they do and where they go on the net, most of them choose to opt out. Meta,
which owns Facebook, has complained bitterly about it.
Is subscription
the alternative, and if so, just how much are consumers prepared to pay? It
seems first Musk and now Zuckerberg are determined to find out.
By Antoinette Radford || BBC News
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