MARK ZUCKERBERG

Mark Zuckerberg Announces Paid Service For Facebook & IG Similar To Twitter

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Mark Zuckerberg says that Meta is launching a paid service for Facebook and Instagram, noticeably similar to the Twitter Blue service that Elon Musk recently went forth with. The subscription will cost $11.99 per month on web browsers or $14.99 per month on iOS. Zuckerberg made the announcement on his Instagram Story, on Sunday.

“Good morning and new product announcement: this week we’re starting to roll out Meta Verified — a subscription service that lets you verify your account with a government ID, get a blue badge, get extra impersonation protection against accounts claiming to be you, and get direct access to customer support. This new feature is about increasing authenticity and security across our services. Meta Verified starts at $11.99 / month on web or $14.99 / month on iOS. We’ll be rolling out in Australia and New Zealand this week and more countries soon.”

Mark Zuckerberg’s Announcement

Image via Instagram/zuck

A spokesperson for Meta confirmed to CNN that the company will shift the emphasis of the blue badge to authenticity in order to verify more people. “We are evolving the meaning of the blue badge to focus on authenticity so we can expand verification access to more people,” the Meta spokesperson said. “We will display follower count in more places so people can distinguish which accounts are notable public figures among accounts that share the same name.”

Elon Musk launched a similar idea for Twitter back in December. While the service has undergone many changes since then, it costs $11 a month for iOS and Android subscribers. Discord, Reddit, and YouTube are other social media platforms to offer similar subscription-based features.

Unlike Twitter, Meta users looking for verification will have to submit government IDs and match them up to their own profile. This will hopefully prevent the spread of fake accounts posing as celebrities, as has been a problem on Musk’s site. Musk responded to the Meta news on Twitter, Sunday, while reacting to a meme that implied Zuckerberg is cheating off of Musk’s ideas. He also described the decision by Meta as “Inevitable.” Musk purchased Twitter for $44 billion, last year.

Elon Musk’s Response

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T-Pain Held A Livestream Town Hall With Mark Zuckerberg To Talk About Improving Instagram’s DMs

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Getty Image

After T-Pain found out that he missed out on dozens of conversations with fellow celebrities due to his unawareness of Instagram’s requested DMs folder, he decided to hold a town hall on Instagram Live, inviting Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to discuss ways to improve the app’s DM feature (Facebook is the parent company of Instagram). T-Pain also brought on many of those whose DMs he missed, finally responding to them on such topics as the various collaborations they’ve worked on and Usher’s upcoming Vegas residency, which had its own viral moment recently.

Explaining why Instagram instituted the request folder, Zuckerberg told T-Pain, “The reason we have the ‘request feature’ is to prevent bullying or spam and other unwanted interactions — to be able to filter that out. Ideally, we should be able to figure out who the other people who might be sending you messages are who should get into that. The feature isn’t quite as advanced today as hopefully, it [will be] in the future.” Pain agreed that it’s a good idea for a multitude of reasons but pointed out how his recent trouble highlighted how sorting out potential spam also caused him to miss messages from famous friends, fans, collaborators, and potential business partners like Diplo, Fergie, Viola Davis, and ESPN.

Over the course of the town hall, T-Pain also teased collaborations with Rich The Kid and Kehlani, playing the latter in entirety and announcing its release this Friday.

You can watch the full livestream via the embedded Instagram post above.