The paid blue check also arrives on Facebook and Instagram

Meta would start testing to add a paid blue check for accounts Instagram e Facebook verified. The CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on Instagram that the badge “Meta Verifiedit will cost $11.99/month for web and $14.99 on smartphone. And that those who participate will receive various advantages, as happens on Twitter, which has been adopting this strategy for some months now.

Facebook and Instagram will have a paid blue tick – as will Twitter

In the post on Instagram in which he officially announces the test, Zuckerberg explains that whoever has the badge for the paid account will have various advantages. Like greater visibility on the platform, priority customer support and much more. The test will start in Australia and New Zealand, but “soon” we will also see it elsewhere.

Zuckerberg writes, “This week we’re starting to roll out Meta Verified, a subscription service that lets you verify your account with a government ID, earn a blue badge, get added protection against fake accounts claiming to be yourself and get direct access to customer support. This new feature is about increasing authenticity and security across all of our services.”

Social networks become paid

Zuckerberg’s announcement follows what was proposed a few months ago by Elon Musk, who launched a similar service on Twitter – recently arrived in Italy. With excessive haste, given the problems that the new Twitter Blue had at launch. But given how Meta rushed to propose a similar measure, it seems that the result is positive (or at least perceived as such by the competition).

To register with Meta Verified, you need be 18 years of age or older and verify ID that matches your name and profile picture on Facebook or Instagram. Unlike Twitter, Meta points out that it won’t make any changes to accounts that have been verified using the company’s previous requirements, including notability and authenticity: those who already have the blue check will keep it.

In addition to the security of the verified account, users who sign up for the service will receive exclusive stickers for Stories and Reels. In addition, they will also receive 100 free stars per month – the digital currency to tip creators on Facebook.

At this time, businesses are still unable to apply for a Meta Verified badge. People who get it should however know that it is not possible to change the profile name, username, birthday or profile photo without repeating the verification process.

Subscriptions for Meta platforms

When it launches in Australia and New Zealand, which will take place as a trial this week, the service will cost AUD19.99 or NZ$23.99 for web and AUD24.99 or NZ$29.99 for mobile. The highest cost for iOS and Android we think it’s to add the percentage that the App Store and Play Store take of all transactions.

In Meta’s blog post that talks about the issue, we read that the goal is to make subscriptions part of the social’s everyday life. “Long term, we want to create a subscription offering that benefits everyone, including creators, businesses, and our community at large. As part of this vision, we are evolving the meaning of the verified badge so we can expand access to verification and more people can trust that the accounts they interact with are genuine.”

This news comes after weeks of speculation about it (starting from a TechCrunch report). It seems that Meta takes account verification a little more seriously, requesting account verification through a government document, which Twitter instead removed after the arrival of Elon Musk. This should avoid seeing many fake accounts as happened on Twitter. But on the other hand, it remains a step in the direction of a world of social networks that is increasingly “expensive” for users compared to the past. All that remains is to wait for understand the results of these subscriptions to evaluate whether it is really worth it – for the platforms and for the users.