Meta begins selling blue badges... however, security and customer service



In a surprise announcement over the weekend, Meta announced a radical change to Facebook and Instagram by offering to sell its blue verified badge to customers, emulating Elon Musk's Twitter playbook. Other benefits of the paid subscription include improved impersonation protection, direct access to customer support, and increased visibility through upranked posts. It will first be available in Australia and New Zealand.

Twitter's first attempt at paid verification was unsuccessful, as users who purchased the badge then changed their name and profile picture to troll other high-profile accounts (including Musk) and businesses. Twitter had to pause and readjust its service.

 

Meta's paid badge has a few more rules in place, seemingly learning from Twitter's mistakes.

To begin, users must verify their identity with a government-issued ID card, and after paying for verification, they will not be able to change their profile name, username, date of birth, or photo. If they later decide to change their mind, they must unsubscribe and then be reverified. This significantly reduces bad actors, but it may be inconvenient for creators who like to update their photos on a regular basis. However, this may not always be the case — Meta has stated that it is working on a feature that will allow users to change these settings via a new verification process that will not require them to cancel and resubscribe... It's simply not ready yet.

Also worth noting is that Meta Verified will not verify users across Facebook and Instagram — users will have to purchase separate plans for the two apps, and Facebook's subscription is currently only available on the web. Customers will pay $27 per month for access to this badge and other perks across Meta's apps at the current prices. (The monthly subscription is $11.99 on the web and $14.99 on iOS or Android.)

 


The trend towards paid verification is a potentially risky move for social networks like Meta and Twitter, because they are now in charge of services that users believe should be free, such as safety, security, and customer service. The ability to identify an account as authentic is seen as a feature that networks should provide in order for their users to trust who they're interacting with. Being able to get assistance with issues such as impersonation or other customer support issues is also seen as something that should be included in the social network's core service. By categorising these features into pay-to-play tiers, the networks are establishing a system in which those with more money receive a higher level of service than those with less. However, security and trust should not be sold as if they were upgraded plane seats; rather, they should be baked into the core offering.