Meta Follows Twitter Into Subscriptions

Meta will begin testing a paid verification service for creators on Facebook and Instagram.

The social media giant announced the launch of Meta Verified on Sunday (Feb. 19), saying it would begin testing the $12 per month service in Australia and New Zealand before bringing it to the rest of the world

“Some of the top requests we get from creators are for broader access to verification and account support, in addition to more features to increase visibility and reach,” the company said in its announcement. “Since last year, we’ve been thinking about how to unlock access to these features through a paid offering.”

Meta Verified offers users a verified badge that confirms the person is real and that their account has been authenticated with a government ID. It also offers added protection from impersonation “with proactive account monitoring for impersonators who might target people with growing online audiences.”

The launch comes months after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg tried to reassure investors that he and the company are focused on its social media roots.

Those investors’ concerns that he and Meta had not been paying attention to the firm’s core business at the expense of its metaverse project had led to a 64% drop in the price of the company’s shares last year, along with thousands of layoffs.

Since then, PYMNTS reported earlier this month, the company has said it’s seeing more engagement with its apps, and sees potential to monetize that engagement. Meta said in early February that the number of daily active people across the company’s family of apps — Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp — was just under 3 billion in December, a 5% increase from last year.

“I said last quarter that I thought our product trends look better than most of the commentary out there suggests,” Zuckerberg said during an earnings call. “And I think that’s even more the case now,” adding that “the number of people daily using Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp is the highest it’s ever been.”

With that in mind, and with a nod to the AI initiatives already underway, Zuckerberg said that Facebook and Instagram are “shifting” from being based solely around people and accounts to a model that shows relevant content.

The roll out of Meta Verified is also happening as consumers are increasingly seeking advanced identity verification tools, as PYMNTS research has found, with 70% of adults interested in these tools for asset or data protection.