Facebook’s parent company Meta Platforms is testing a verified-subscription service across its social media platforms, including Facebook and Instagram.
Key Details
- Meta Platforms is launching a paid-subscription service for users to verify their accounts and receive direct access to customer support systems.
- The subscription will cost $11.99 monthly for social-media accounts using a web browser or $14.99 monthly for accounts on an iPhone or Android.
- The subscription service aims to increase authenticity and security across the company’s platforms and to “help up-and-coming creators grow their presence and build community faster,” according to a Meta spokesman.
- The service is being tested in Australia and New Zealand with plans of rolling to the U.S. in the upcoming months.
Why it’s news
Facebook and Instagram joins other social-media platforms in offering a subscription-based verification service for the platforms. Twitter has a paid verification service as well.
Facebook and Instagram’s parent company Meta Platforms recently announced that it is testing a monthly subscription service for its platforms.
The service will allow users to verify their accounts with government identification and receive direct access to customer support—two features that Instagram and Facebook have lacked.
The two social-media companies have been flooded with fake accounts and users pretending to be others or hacking into other accounts. When this happens, users have found it difficult to contact someone from Meta to secure their account and regain access.
Now with the subscription service, users can become verified, and if something happens to their account or another account begins impersonating them, they have direct access to customer service.
The subscription will cost $11.99 monthly for social media accounts using a web browser or $14.99 monthly for accounts on an iPhone or Android, according to Meta.
Meta relies heavily on its advertising business, and if the subscription service becomes as popular as the company hopes, more ad revenue could begin flowing to Meta.
The service is being tested in Australia and New Zealand with plans of rolling to the U.S. in the upcoming months.
Other social media subscriptions
Meta’s Facebook and Instagram aren’t the first socia-media accounts to begin adding a paid subscription service.
Snapchat announced a Snapchat+ feature where users could pay a monthly fee of $3.99 to access exclusive features on the app.
Twitter also rolled out a paid subscription service similar to the one Meta is currently testing.
Twitter began charging an $8-per-month fee for users to maintain a verified account on the platform. Anyone who wanted to remain verified on the platform would have to pay the fee to do so.
