Meta’s New Pay-To-Play Verified Badge for Facebook and Instagram

When I saw the announcement that Zuckerberg is rolling out paid verified badges for Facebook and Instagram, I nearly spit out my tea. Really, I shouldn’t have been surprised. Meta lost over $600 billion in market value last year and laid off 13% of their workforce (11,000 employees) in November, so they need to find ways to make more money. Instead of fixing their popular social media networks to reduce spam and identity theft more broadly, they’re seeing this problem as an opportunity to make more money: get users to fork over money to keep our accounts secure and help prevent hacking. Genius really. And despicable.

Maybe I’m a little bitter. (Okay, maybe a lot.) As you may know, I also run florapothecarie, my line of handmade vegan skincare products, which I launched in 2016. I’ve been trying to verify my florapothecarie Instagram and Facebook accounts since their creation that same year. I’ve provided all the documentation required, which at first was just legal IDs or business formation documents, then they set the bar higher and asked that you confirm your “notability,” with links and articles “that show your account is in the public interest” - I’ve been on a guest on a podcast that has tens of thousands of listeners, so you’d think that would be enough, but no. I’ve been chasing verification for 7 years and now I’m being asked to pay for it? No thanks.

Why is this a problem? Well, I mean, it worked so well for Twitter, right? Wrong. People paid for Twitter verification so they could impersonate companies, politicians, and other influential figures, including Twitter’s new CEO, Elon Musk. Now you just have to have a confirmed phone number, no recent changes to your account, and no signs of being “misleading or deceptive” and fork over $8/month to be get the “coveted” [insert mega eye roll] blue check mark on Twitter.

How will Meta Verified work? It’s important to note this is still a work in progress and is being rolled out slowly (currently in Australia and New Zealand), as Meta/Facebook usually does, so it may change when it actually hits US accounts. As it stands now, Meta Verified is “a subscription bundle” on Instagram and Facebook that includes the blue check mark, “proactive account protection, access to account support, and increased visibility and reach.” In order to get an account verified, you have to authenticate your account using a government ID - so at least that seems way more legit than Twitter Blue. Aside from being pissed that the company won’t offer proactive support to prevent spam, hacking, and impersonation, I’m also confused by the pricing model — (USD) $11.99 on the web and (USD) $14.99 on iOS and Android. What about those of us who use both web and mobile to manage our Facebook and Instagram accounts? Will we have to pay for both? What also isn’t clear is if you have to pay for each account you verify, which seems likely. Social media consultant Matt Navarra snapped this screenshot of the Meta Verified policies within Instagram’s Help Center before the company removed it, which states: “Purchasing a Meta Verified subscription on Instagram will not transfer over to your Facebook account. If you have multiple profiles on your Instagram account, each profile must have an individual Meta Verified subscription…” So, someone like me who has 2 Instagram accounts for both my businesses and a Facebook page will have to pay at the minimum $36/month if we’re looking at the web pricing, which again, does not make any sense to me. but I’ll likely have to pay more to manage these accounts on both mobile and web. Just have a price per account! Or per email address/account manager!

"This new feature is about increasing authenticity and security across our services," says Zuckerberg. No it isn’t, dude, it’s about increasing revenue, don’t dress this up as a way to help people “across [y]our services,” when you’re only providing this kind of support to people who will pay for it. And beyond that, Meta says, “Meta Verified will only support your real name on your profile.” So, Lady Gaga will have to be “Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta” ? Okay, I probably don’t have to worry about Lady Gaga, but you get what I mean.

At this point, business accounts are not eligible, so Meta Verified is initially meant for celebrities and influential people, but don’t worry, they’ll roll it out to business accounts ‘cause they need that cash money influx.

I’m just… disgusted. For over a decade, I’ve been helping small businesses and entrepreneurs use Facebook and Instagram to help grow their audiences. Even through all the changes in algorithms when I would see my clients become angry at the platforms for making it even harder to reach their audiences, I would play devil’s advocate and say, “I understand it’s frustrating, but we have to remember that Facebook is a business too, and they’re also looking to make money. Social media isn’t free anymore.” And I would advise my clients to set aside at least a small budget to boosting posts or running occasional ads on these platforms. Now, I’m just… realizing I need to look up more synonyms for “disgusted” - sick, repulsed, nauseated, appalled, outraged. Meta has allowed bots and spammers to take over their platforms, infiltrate and hijack their users’ accounts, blackmail and bully them into giving them ransom or risk having their accounts completely shut down, and Meta’s response is, “Hey, there’s money in this. Let’s make people pay to keep their accounts secure.” It’s just abhorrent.

So what does this mean for me and Meta, or you and Meta? I don’t know. For many of us, Facebook and Instagram are still “necessary evils” for reaching our audiences, our potential and current clients and customers, and not getting Meta Verified when it rolls out for the US is definitely going to negatively impact how much of our followers we’re reaching. I think each of us will have to decide if we view Facebook and Instagram as paid marketing/advertising channels now, and if that’s worth it for our businesses. But mostly? It strengthens my resolve to double down on email, and help my clients do the same.

In light of all this, I’m going to re-open the doors to my free email training, Grow Your Audience With Email Marketing (lovingly dubbed GYAWEM). I can’t think of a better time to help you reclaim your audience through email marketing, so I’m launching it again on March 1. What is GYAWEM? It’s a free series of emails set once a week over the course of 5 weeks with tips on how to get started with email marketing, how to build your list of subscribers, what to send them and how often, and more. Learn more and sign up here!