On February 20, Meta announced its paid verification service called Meta Verified, which, as the tech giant puts it, is a subscription bundle on Instagram and Facebook that includes a verified badge that authenticates your account with a government ID, proactive account protection, access to account support, and increased visibility and reach.
On February 20, Meta announced its paid verification service called Meta Verified, which, as the tech giant puts it, is a subscription bundle on Instagram and Facebook that includes a verified badge that authenticates your account with a government ID, proactive account protection, access to account support, and increased visibility and reach.
The concept sounds familiar because it is similar to tumbling Twitter’s Blue subscription model which also allows users to get a verified blue checkmark along with several added advantages.
These blue ticks hold an aspirational value and the idea of having a verified account is every social-media user’s dream. Regardless of what they do in real life, everyone wants to be recognised and validated on these platforms.
But now that Twitter and Meta are basically selling these for a starting price of $8 and $11.99 per month respectively, do they still hold the same value? More importantly, does it make sense for you to subscribe to such a model? Let’s find out.
What is Meta Verified?
According to the company’s blog post, Meta Verified allows users to get:
How is it different from Twitter Blue?
While the basic idea behind the models is the same — security and verification — the services offer very different features, but that also has to do with how the platforms are also worlds apart (although all of social media is just beginning to look like one single platform, but that's a story for another day).
Twitter is a micro-blogging platform where people put out their thoughts and opinions; they follow experts and organisations to get their information from, and that’s the crux of it. Unless, of course, you also like to engage in occasional banter with strangers over nothing and are there to just enjoy the high of people paying you attention. So, it makes sense to know if you’re getting your information from a credible source or are just being made a fool of.
Instagram and Facebook are platforms you use to connect with your friends and family, at least that’s what they were supposed to be. But even now, they are sort of like behind-the-scenes for Twitter where people share more personal and visual content, where you feel like you know the person you’re looking at — even if you don’t. Here, it is just a matter of not being impersonated, which Meta says it will take care of if you subscribe to the service.
In one of the episodes of his podcast Waveform, tech YouTuber Marques Brownlee and his co-hosts discussed Meta Verified and brought up an interesting point. Generally what happens with paid services is that you trade your money for keeping your data safe. With Meta Verified, you’re paying for the service but you’re also giving your data to the company.
David Imel, one of the co-hosts of the podcast said, “The product is free because you are the product.” Let’s take the example of YouTube Premium or Spotify Premium where you pay so you don’t have to deal with ads. With Meta Verified, not only are you paying but you’re now also sharing your government ID with them. So from what it looks like, Meta is getting paid both by the advertisers and the users. And this happens when the conversation around the platform's monesting creators still hasn’t come into action.
Should you get Meta Verified?
Meta said that the service is to “help creators establish their presence”. But creators who have a good following and content are already verified — most of them at least. Perhaps budding creators can use the service to get increased visibility in searches, comments and recommendations, especially with the ever-changing Instagram algorithm, which mutates faster than the coronavirus.
If you think a monthly payment of $11.99 on the web or $14.99 on iOS/Android is worth what Meta is offering, then go ahead and sign up for the waitlist. If not, then save that money and invest it in your content.
Meta Verified is currently available in Australia and New Zealand for people 18 years or older and is not yet available in all places or for businesses, according to Meta's website. But that will soon change.
First Published: Mar 11, 2023 8:35 AM IST
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