Following a similar move by Elon Musk at Twitter, Meta, the company that owns Facebook and Instagram, will introduce a premium subscription service with a starting price of $11.99 per month that would allow users to verify their accounts, CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed on Sunday.
Meta Verified, which will roll out first in Australia and New Zealand this week, will let users “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.
“This new feature is about increasing authenticity and security across our services,” he wrote in a statement posted to his Facebook account.
The business added that verified Facebook and Instagram profiles will remain the same and that only people who are at least 18 years old would be permitted to subscribe. Businesses are not yet able to use the service.
Musk’s initial attempts to introduce a comparable service at rival social media network Twitter last year backfired horribly, scaring away advertisers and raising serious concerns about the site’s sustainability.
He was had to temporarily halt the initiative before resuming it in December to lukewarm response.
Meta’s announcement comes as the social media behemoth grappled with financial difficulties over the past year, announcing in November that it would lay off 11,000 employees or 13 percent of its staff — the largest worker reduction in the company’s history.
The layoffs are part of a wave of redundancies announced by Silicon Valley giants in recent months, as the once unassailable sector faces economic gloom.
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.
Investors last year punished Meta, sending the company’s share price down by an astonishing two-thirds over 12 months, but the stock has recovered some of the ground in 2023.
Zuckerberg has remained optimistic about Meta’s future.
Earlier this month the company reported its first annual sales drop since it went public in 2012, but the fall was less brutal than expected.
The company also recently announced that the number of daily users on Facebook hit two billion for the first time.
AFP
