Meta Launches Subscription Service for Account Verification on Facebook and Instagram

Meta Platforms Inc., the parent company of social media giants Facebook and Instagram, has launched a new subscription service in the US called Meta Verified. This service allows users to pay for verification, similar to Twitter's verification system.

To use the Meta Verified service, users must first verify their accounts with a government ID. After this process, the service costs $11.99 per month on the web and $14.99 per month on both Apple's iOS and Google's Android platforms. The service was announced by Meta in February and is similar to Snapchat and Telegram's services.

This subscription service is the latest attempt by a social media company to monetize their platforms in ways other than ads. Twitter, for instance, launched its Blue subscription service last year, which allows people to pay for the blue checkmark that was previously only available to verified accounts of public figures, politicians, and journalists.

When Twitter Blue first launched in November, many people impersonated celebrities and brands on the platform, which led to Twitter stopping the service and relaunching it with different colored checks for people, businesses, and governments.

Meta Verified offers Facebook and Instagram users the opportunity to prove their identities on their accounts and gain verified status for a monthly fee. As more social media companies move away from relying solely on advertising revenue, it will be interesting to see if other companies follow Meta and Twitter's lead and begin implementing subscription-based models.