Facebook and Instagram will begin rolling out a paid verification subscription service this week, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on Sunday, following in the footsteps of competitor Twitter.
The service, dubbed Meta Verified, offers subscribers additional protections against identity theft and direct access to customer support, Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post. The plan, which will cost $12 for a web subscription or $15 for iOS, is rolling out this week in Australia and New Zealand, with more countries being added soon, he wrote.
Facebook has long offered a verified tick to accounts deemed notable and authentic, but the new plan will make the tick available to paying customers, who can verify their identity with a government-issued ID.
Facebook’s move to monetize the tick comes after Elon Musk announced a similar move last year with Twitter’s coveted blue verified tick, previously used to signal that an account held by a celebrity, journalist, politician or other public figure is not fake. Musk’s plan to charge users $8 a month for the tick is seen as a way to make Twitter less dependent on ad revenue, but a Spread of Fake Accounts impersonating big brands prompted Twitter to temporarily pause the launch of the subscription service in November.
