Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg announced in a Facebook post that this week the company will launch Meta Verified, a blue verification badge that users can earn with a paid monthly subscription.
Zuckerberg added that the service allows users to verify their account with any government-issued identification for additional protection beyond a blue badge, identity theft prevention and direct access to customer support, with a monthly subscription starting at $11.99 and $14.99 across the iOS platform. The service launches in Australia and New Zealand this week, with more countries to follow soon.
Zuckerberg did not specify which of the company's services can use paid verification codes, but previous leaks indicated that the feature would be available to followers on Facebook and Instagram.
Paid certificate tags differ from traditional certificate tags in difficulty: obtaining a new certificate requires only paying a subscription and adding a copy of your ID card or passport, while obtaining a traditional blue mark requires additional conditions, such as the user being a public person or a very popular page. The company hasn't said whether the new certification mark will override the old one, which required account holders to pay a subscription fee to keep their accounts certified.
Facebook's move is similar to that of Twitter a few months ago when it launched its paid authentication brand (Twitter Blue). Subscribing to the Twitter service includes a variety of features, such as: b. Display fewer ads, the ability to customize the appearance of the application, display a tab for the most popular articles, and the ability to post long tweets of up to 4000 characters.
Zuckerberg did not say whether Meta Verified will add more features for subscribers in the future.
It should be noted that there is an active black market selling verified accounts for thousands of dollars, and Instagram has previously caught company employees selling verification codes to anyone who wants to buy them without the required certificate. Small business owners want to gain credibility with their followers through the endorsement hashtag.
The popularity of the black market for selling test tags and Twitter taking this step seems to have encouraged Meta to take similar steps to stop selling test tags on the black market and find new revenue streams.