Facebook and Instagram will begin rolling out a paid verification subscription service this week, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Sunday, following in the footsteps of rival Twitter.
The service, called Meta Verified, will offer subscribers extra protection against impersonation 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, will begin rolling out in Australia and New Zealand this week, with more countries being added soon, he wrote.
Facebook has long offered a verified check mark badge to accounts deemed notable and authentic, but the new plan will provide the check mark to paying customers who can verify their identity with a government-issued ID.
Facebook’s move to monetize the check mark comes after Elon Musk announced a similar move last year with Twitter’s coveted blue verified check mark, which was previously used to signal that an account of a celebrity, journalist, politician or other public figure isn’t fake. Musk’s plan to charge users $8 a month for the check mark is seen as a way to make Twitter less reliant on advertising revenue, but a proliferation of fake accounts impersonating major brands prompted Twitter to temporarily pause the rollout of the subscription service in November.
