Zuckerberg Announces Subscription Service For Meta's Facebook And Instagram, Elon Musk Has 1 Word To Say About It

Meta Platforms Inc META is rolling out a subscription service for its Facebook and Instagram users. 

The subscription service is called Meta Verified and will be rolled out first in Australia and New Zealand this week, followed by other countries, reports Reuters. 

According to the report, the service will let users verify their accounts using a government ID to get a blue badge. The service will cost $11.99 monthly on the web and $14.99 monthly on Apple’s iOS and Android platforms.

Along with a verification badge, the subscription service includes “proactive account protection, access to account support, and increased visibility and reach,” a Meta spokesperson said on Sunday. 

According to Meta’s spokesperson, users must be at least 18, meet minimum account activity requirements, and submit a government ID to qualify for proactive account protection. 

Also Read: Thousands Of Meta Workers Receive Poor Performance Ratings, Signaling Potential Layoffs: Report

The subscriptions will also include “proactive monitoring” for account impersonation. 

“This new feature is about increasing authenticity and security across our services,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in an Instagram post on Sunday. 

After Meta announced its subscription service, Twitter CEO Elon Musk said it was “inevitable” that Meta would follow Twitter and charge for verified status via subscription services. 

Musk was responding to a Tweet which said Zuckerberg copied Twitter by charging for user verification statuses.

Inevitable

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 19, 2023

Subscription services have become an increasingly popular revenue-generation model among social media platforms. 

Twitter has started its subscription service and charged $8 per month for Blue Verified users on the web and $11/per month for users signing up via iOS device.

However, Musk-led Twitter has attracted significantly fewer subscribers than the billionaire might have anticipated. 

As of mid-January 2023, approximately 180,000 people in the U.S. are paying for subscriptions to the microblogging site. This includes Twitter Blue subscribers. 

This is less than 0.2% of monthly active users on the platform, reported The Information, citing a document viewed by the outlet. 

Photo: Courtesy of Anthony Quintano on flickr