Social networks have long contended with issues such as automated posts, spam, security vulnerabilities, and phony user accounts. Meta and Twitter have devised an innovative solution to the problem: requiring users to pay for enhanced security.
Meta announced on February 19 that it would launch a paid membership service dubbed Meta Verified. Additional identification and security features and improved customer service would be included in this service, costing $11.99 per month on the web and $14.99 on iOS.
Australia and New Zealand are currently conducting assessments. Users sign up for the service and send in government-issued Information to verify their identity. If everything goes well, they get a blue badge, proactive protection against fake profiles, and direct help from Meta.
The Information corroborated the report on Friday, adding that it is presently unknown when the change will go into effect or when enterprises that do not pay will forfeit their gold check.
Twitter currently provides verified businesses with gold checks and permits them to position a small, hyperlinked version of their logo next to the gold check on other pages associated with their company.
In addition to the $1,000 monthly fee for a business account, Twitter will charge $50 per affiliated account, according to Erin Woo of The Information.
According to the screenshots provided by Navarra, the program is called Verified Organizations and was first advertised by the Twitter Business account in January alongside an application for early access.
After the end of March, non-Blue users will no longer be able to use Twitter’s two-factor verification via text message. Users are paying for a security provider that has become standard across online accounts, not just a blue check mark.
Users are generally unhappy with the decision to implement a fee for using the service. Jason Waterfalls, a Facebook user, compares taxing users for account authentication and security services to manufacturers charging extra for safety features such as seatbelts and airbags in a message. Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook must improve their social media platforms.
Zuckerberg asserts that protecting Facebook and Instagram’s nearly 4 billion users is costly. When someone commented negatively on the implementation of service fees, he wrote:
The CEO of Meta stated that all consumers are protected and supported to some degree. Meta and the Twitter Help Center will work together to detect and remove the more than 5 billion duplicate or fraudulent accounts created annually.
The success of these endeavors cannot be guaranteed because users are hesitant to spend money. Since its launch in November, Twitter Blue has only gained 180,000 users in the US, which is less than 2% of all Twitter users. According to Tran, these changes will reduce the time non-subscribed users spend on these services.