Instagram and Facebook will receive payment for verification while Twitter will charge for two-factor SMS authentication

Meta will soon require users of Facebook and Instagram to pay in order to be verified on the social media platforms, following Twitter, a rival platform.

On Sunday, Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg made the announcement in a Facebook post that the service would begin its rollout later this week in Australia and New Zealand.

The company stated that it would cost US$11.99 per month for the web and US$14.99 for iOS and Android (or $19.99 for the web and $24.99 for iOS and Android in Australia).

In addition to a blue badge, the service, according to Zuckerberg, would provide direct access to customer support, enhanced reach for verified users, and “extra impersonation protection.”

Meta stated in a blog post that it would use government IDs to verify verified accounts to avoid the embarrassment of accounts impersonating people and brands, as happened with Twitter’s paid verification service when it first launched.

Accounts should likewise have a posting history and clients should be no less than 18 years of age.

Meta stated that businesses would not be able to use the service at this time.

According to the company, the increased visibility of posts by verified users would “depend on a subscriber’s existing audience size and the topic of their posts.” It’s possible that those with smaller audiences will have a greater impact.

The business stated that it would also offer “exclusive stickers” for Facebook, Instagram, and Instagram reels.

As a result of declining ad revenue and the economic downturn, Meta laid off 11,000 employees in November, or 13% of its workforce. The organization’s portion cost fell by over 70% in 2022 preceding a bounce back and in July it revealed its very first fall in income.

Elon Musk, CEO of Twitter, tweeted that Meta would follow Twitter because it was “inevitable.”

Separately, Twitter announced on Friday that, beginning on March 20, only users who are subscribed to the US$8-a-month (or $11.65 per month) Twitter Blue service will be able to use SMS-based two-factor authentication.

Currently, the company offers free two-factor authentication via third-party apps and a security key, which is thought to be safer than SMS-based systems. Twitter stated that it would disable two-factor authentication for non-subscriber accounts that use SMS authentication if they did not switch before the deadline.

The move has started worries that it could prompt boundless hacks on accounts one month from now assuming they neglect to switch over.

As of December 2021, despite the fact that only 2.6% of active Twitter accounts use two-factor authentication, 744.4% of those accounts use SMS as their method of authentication, according to the most recent transparency report released by Twitter prior to Musk’s acquisition.

Musk has stated that bogus two-factor authentication messages were costing Twitter US$60 million annually in “scams.” He also backed a tweet that said the scams were being run by telecom companies that set up bot accounts to run the two-factor authentication process in order to make money from Twitter’s text messages.