Elon Musk has referred to Mark Zuckerberg's decision to roll out Meta's paid subscription program as 'inevitable'.
The Tesla boss has alluded to the idea that Zuckerberg has followed in Twitter's footsteps after, earlier this month, announcing that Meta would be testing the new scheme which would allow Facebook and Instagram users to pay for a verified account.
The verification service will be named 'Meta Verified' and will begin in New Zealand and Australia, before additional rollout across other countries, Zuckerberg said.
Prices start from $11.99 per month (£10) on the web or $14.99 (£12.50) per month on Apple and Android apps.
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Meta say they will use a government identification to verify a user’s account in order to give it a blue badge.
Before the scheme, Meta’s blue badges were free and reserved for notable public figures or businesses.
Subscribers will also get extra protection against account impersonation and direct access to customer support, the company claims.
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“This new feature is about increasing authenticity and security across our services,” Zuckerberg said.
Late last year, following Musk's $44 billion takeover, Twitter began charging users $8 (£6.65) per month for Twitter Blue, which verifies their account with the coveted blue tick.
Responding to a tweet which announced Meta's new scheme, Musk's one word reply simply read: "Inevitable."
Matt Navarra, a social media consultant, has attempted to explain why Meta has made such a move.
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They told Insider: "The market has already been tested by rivals, the perks mostly already exist and don't require much engineering time to pull together for this new product, and it generates a new revenue stream at a time when most companies are facing challenging economic headwinds."
Well, it's been no secret that the South Africa-born billionaire has been looking for a new CEO to manage Twitter.
He hopes to find a new candidate 'probably toward the end of this year'.
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Speaking via a video call to the World Government Summit in Dubai, Musk said: “I think I need to stabilise the organisation and just make sure it’s in a financial healthy place.
“I’m guessing probably toward the end of this year would be good timing to find someone else to run the company.”
Musk also said that he wants Twitter to stand out from the crowd - without being such a high usage social media app like TikTok.
He added: “TikTok has a lot of very high usage (but) I often hear people say, ‘Well, I spent two hours on TikTok, but I regret those two hours’.
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“We don’t want that to be the case with Twitter.”
Topics: Twitter, Elon Musk, Social Media, Mark Zuckerberg
Anish Vij