Meta, Facebook’s parent corporation, has begun to roll out a paid verification service in the United Kingdom.
The service, which is similar to Elon Musk’s Twitter Blue, gives Facebook and Instagram users a blue tick for £9.99 a month.
To qualify, subscribers must be at least 18 years old and provide a government ID.
The function is already available in the United States, Australia, and New Zealand.
People who have expressed an interest in Meta Verified will be notified when it becomes available. It will be made available to others in the UK in the coming weeks.
Those who are approved by Meta will receive a verified badge, which the tech firm claims will safeguard them from impersonation by monitoring their accounts for fakers.
It also states that verified users will have “access to a real person” if they have a problem with their account.
Twitter verification
Mr Musk made the decision following the implementation of the premium Twitter Blue subscription in November 2022.
The service was contentious at the time since it replaced the prior method, which employed blue ticks to confirm that high-profile accounts belonged to the persons who claimed to be them.
On the 20th of April, Mr Musk deleted what became known as “legacy” verification ticks from account users, reserving the “verified” blue badge for individuals who had paid for Twitter Blue and authenticated their phone number.
As a result of the blue tick removal process, high-profile users such as Hillary Clinton lost their verification badges, and subscribers were able to modify their own identity to mimic them.
Twitter later decided to return blue ticks for free to a number of celebrities, countries, and organizations.
Both Facebook and Instagram already have a celebrity verification system in place, and Meta does not appear to be aiming to abandon it anytime soon.
According to the support pages for the platforms, as well as subscribing to Meta Verified, users can still apply for a verified badge if they are “a public figure, celebrity or brand and meet the account and eligibility requirements”.
The decision to add a paid-for verification system amounts to a change of direction for Facebook and Instagram, which have previously both been free to use in all circumstances since they rose to prominence.
The services have relied heavily on advertising revenue, which accounts for the great majority of Meta’s revenue.
While both networks are currently free to use, the move to add a premium tier that boosts visibility is an attempt to discover alternative methods to monetize the platforms.
It comes six months after the business disclosed 11,000 job layoffs due to over-investment during the pandemic.
At the time, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated that he expected the company’s growth to accelerate, but that this did not occur.
