by Meta, owner of Facebook and Instagram, will launch a paid subscription service starting at $11.99 per month that will allow users to verify their accounts on those social networks, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced, following a similar initiative by Elon Musk on Twitter.
“Meta Verified,” rolling out first in Australia and New Zealand this week “and more countries soon,” will allow users to “authenticate your account” and give benefits like “direct access to customer support,” Zuckerberg said.
“This new function tries to increase the authenticity and security in all our services,” he explained in a statement posted on his Facebook account.
There will be no change to Facebook and Instagram accounts that are already verified, the company said, adding that only users over the age of 18 will be able to sign up. The service is not yet available for businesses.
Musk’s initial attempts to launch a similar service on Twitter last year failed, with a series of fake accounts casting doubt on the site’s future. However, Zuckerberg wants this strategy to work with his social networks.
Meta’s announcement comes as the social media giant has faced financial difficulties since last year: In November, it announced the layoff of 11,000 employees (13% of its staff), the largest reduction in workers in the company’s history.
This payroll cut at Meta is part of a wave of layoffs announced by Silicon Valley tech giants in recent months.
Meta is also under pressure to make a big bet on the metaverse, the world of virtual reality that Zuckerberg believes represents the online future.
Investors penalized Meta last year, causing the company’s share price to fall by two-thirds in 12 months, but the shares regained some lost ground in 2023.
Zuckerberg has remained optimistic about the future of Meta. Earlier this month, the company posted its first annual sales drop since going public in 2012, but the loss was less brutal than expected.
The company also recently announced that the number of daily users on Facebook reached two billion for the first time.
The request of United States congressmen to Mark Zuckerberg
Six US senators have written to Zuckerberg, asking him to block their platforms, such as Facebook and WhatsApp, from being used to facilitate drug and human trafficking, especially in Latin America.
“The overt advertising of human smuggling and drug trafficking services and the prevalence of misinformation about the US immigration system on Facebook they contribute to transnational crime in the region and to the challenges that the United States is experiencing on its border” with Mexico, affirm the congressmen.
“The amplification of these activities by Facebook’s own algorithm only exacerbates these challenges,” they add.
In the letter to Zuckerberg, the senators cite the findings of various investigations into the company’s “grossly inadequate” content moderation and control mechanisms.
They cite internal documents published by the Wall Street Journal revealing that the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel “openly recruited, trained, and paid hit men using Meta’s platforms, and that even when Meta was aware of these activities, it failed to completely remove the cartel from its platforms.”
With information from AFP
