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Mark Zuckerberg announced a paid subscription service for Facebook and Instagram

The Meta logo on a smartphone in front of the logo of Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp, Oculus in this illustrative image taken on October 28, 2021. (REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File)

Goalwhich owns Facebook, announced a subscription service on Sunday, dubbed Goal Verifiedwhich will allow users to verify their accounts by means of an official identity document and obtain a blue badge.

The subscription package for instagram and Facebook it also includes additional protection against spoofing and will be priced from $11.99 per month on the web or $14.99 per month on Apple’s iOS system, he wrote mark zuckerbergfounder of Facebook, in a post on the social network.

“This new feature is intended to increase authenticity and security across all of our services,” he wrote in a statement posted on his Facebook account.

Meta Verified will be implemented in Australia and New Zealand this week, and will gradually roll out in other countries.

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.

the raid of Goal in subscription services follow Twitterwhich announced last month that Twitter Blue will have a price of 11 dollars a month.

Other social networking applications, such as Snapchat and the messaging app Telegramlaunched paid subscription services last year, as a new source of revenue.

Facebook already in 2019 had removed from its home page the slogan of “It’s free and always will be” which sought to encourage users to register.

Facebook Chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies at a House Financial Services Committee hearing in Washington, the United States, October 23, 2019. (Reuters)
Facebook Chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies at a House Financial Services Committee hearing in Washington, the United States, October 23, 2019. (Reuters)

Following his announcement, Zuckerberg also responded to a comment from a user who noted that “direct access to customer service is the real value, much more than the blue check mark.”

“I agree that that’s a big part of the value. Also, once you have verified your account with an official identity document, we can more effectively find and remove any impostor accounts, since we know which account is your real one”, said the founder of the social network.

Meta’s announcement comes at a time when the social media giant has been grappling with financial difficulties over the past year and announced in November that lay off 11,000 employeesthat is, 13% of its workforce, the largest workforce reduction in the company’s history.

Meta is also under pressure for having made a big bet in the metaversethe world of virtual reality that Zuckerberg believes will be the next online frontier.

Last year, investors punished Goaldriving the company’s share price down by two-thirds in 12 months, but the stock has regained some of the ground it lost by 2023.

Zuckerberg remains optimistic about the future of Meta.

Earlier this month, the company reported its first annual sales drop since going public in 2012, but the drop was less brutal than expected.

The company also recently announced that the number of daily Facebook users reached 2,000 million.

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