Zuckerberg will follow in the footsteps of Elon Musk and start charging those who are verified on Instagram and Facebook.

Mark Zuckerberg is far from Elon Musk’s wobbles, at least when it comes to managing his social media, but it looks like they hit it off. Meta has announced that it will launch a new verification system to have the famous blue check mark on Instagram and Facebook, in exchange, yes, monthly subscription.

The new meta-check, as it’s called, has other benefits associated with it. Zuckerberg confirmed that those who pay for the verification will receive increased visibility, phishing protection, priority customer service and more.

As for the price, you’ll have to pay $11.99 per month if you subscribe from the web and $14.99 per month if you do it on mobile (a price increase to offset the Apple and Google fees). This new feature will be available in Australia and New Zealand this week, although it will be coming to other countries “soon”:

“This week we started rolling out Meta Verified, a subscription service that allows you to verify your account with an ID, get a blue badge, get extra phishing protection against accounts impersonating you, and get direct access to customer service. This new feature is designed to improve the authenticity and security of all of our services.”

Mark Zuckerberg on the Meta channel on Instagram.

Meta Verified looks like Twitter Blue with Twitch privileges

In addition, for social media users in their most personal nature, this also includes some of the other benefits of subscription services such as Twitch. HE will offer exclusive stickers for Stories and Reelsand they’ll also get 100 free stars per month, a digital currency you can use to tip creators on Facebook.

However, even if users pay for a subscription, in order to be eligible to participate, you must meet a number of requirements: be over 18 years of age and have minimal activity in the meta services. And the most important thing: Send the company a copy of ID that matches the name and photo you have on Facebook or Instagram.

Of course, the good news is that if you’re already verified with any of Meta’s social networks, you don’t have to do anything. According to Zuckerberg, Meta will not make any changes to accounts that have already been verified. using the company’s previous claims, including notoriety and authenticity. And it won’t change as if Twitter made a post stating the reason for the review.

Companies are excluded for now. Meta has confirmed that companies cannot apply for the Meta Verified badge (yet) and that they will not be able to change their profile name, username, birthday, or profile photo without going through the verification process again.