[HN Gopher] Facebook Announces Meta Verified ___________________________________________________________________ Facebook Announces Meta Verified Author : chirau Score : 133 points Date : 2023-02-19 16:03 UTC (6 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.facebook.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.facebook.com) | nitwit005 wrote: | Feels like this is the wrong approach for Meta, given that | they're paying creators in various ways now. Turning around and | demanding them send some money back to get protection against | impersonators is going to seem very unfriendly. | dazc wrote: | I can't wait to verify my account with Govt id! | | Then I remember my account is blocked because I failed at the | opportunity to do this for free. | Animats wrote: | "It's free and it always will be" disappeared back in 2019. | | [1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2019/08/27/facebook- | no-l... | joe_the_user wrote: | But is this a bad thing? | | It's signal they'll stop bothering the anonymous Facebook | accounts my friends have. Why not let those few people wanting | Facebook verification have it? | wodenokoto wrote: | It also costs money to buy ads on facebook. So not everything | facebook offers has been free for quite some time. | j-bos wrote: | These bold slogans seem to be pretty good canaries, like when | google removed "don't be evil" | tptacek wrote: | Google never removed "don't be evil", but that's a super | common urban legend, because Gizmodo ran an (incorrect) story | headlined "Google Removes 'Don't Be Evil' Clause From Its | Code of Conduct". You can just go look at their code of | conduct and see that this is false. | | (I don't care, and don't think "don't be evil" really ever | meant much, but urban legends drive me a little batty.) | SamvitJ wrote: | Confirmed: search for "don't be evil" in the Code of | Conduct here: https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code- | of-conduct/. It's there at the end. | detourdog wrote: | I never thought it was part of the code of conduct. I | thought it was the answer to the business plan question | before they decided on advertising or maybe their motto. | [deleted] | msm_ wrote: | Interesting. I was even at Google when they "removed" it, I | remember the internal uproar about "removing" it, and I was | sure it was removed. Of course now you reminded me that the | problem was "just" changing the "main" slogan to "do the | right thing", and it was not actually removed. Funny how | memories work. | HaZeust wrote: | To be clear, they moved it to the bottom - but I still can't | comprehend why they did that. It did no favors to the public | relations, LOTS of senior staff resigned, there was no legal | binding to it - so they even could have just kept it there at | the top and just... not mean it. Maybe I need perspective. | tpmx wrote: | "imgur will never have ads" | | Still kind of upset that that immediately obvious lie back in | back in 2009 paid off. | | I was there in the background noise in that first reddit | post, saying the obvious. | | It would not surprise me one bit if it turned out that the | reddit founders manipulated that one post to make it go the | right way. | everdrive wrote: | At least they didn't claim "imgur will never get bought out | by another company and require tracking javascript to even | view images." | stavros wrote: | imgz.org will definitely never have ads. | tpmx wrote: | But it isn't free. Edit: I see a hustler got me to flog | his paid saas. Apologies. | stavros wrote: | Yes, that's why it'll never have ads. | BurningFrog wrote: | I don't think that was ever an official statement? | culturestate wrote: | It was at the very top of Google's corporate code of | conduct until[1] 2018. | | 1. https://gizmodo.com/google-removes-nearly-all-mentions- | of-do... | charcircuit wrote: | It's still in it in 2023. | | https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct/ | culturestate wrote: | This is how that document _used to_ begin: | | _> Preface | | "Don't be evil." Googlers generally apply those words to | how we serve our users. But "Don't be evil" is much more | than that. Yes, it's about providing our users unbiased | access to information, focusing on their needs and giving | them the best products and services that we can. But it's | also about doing the right thing more generally - | following the law, acting honorably, and treating co- | workers with courtesy and respect. | | The Google Code of Conduct is one of the ways we put | "Don't be evil" into practice. ... _ | motbus3 wrote: | Ubiased here is a bit off isn't it? Since they put | results of ads to some queries, this is a kind of a bias | :thinking: | tptacek wrote: | This article is apparently a clickbait urban legend. | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34269029 | wcarss wrote: | I mean, if you read that article, it makes it pretty | clear that the phrase is retained in the final sentence, | but was once much more prominently placed. It doesn't | claim that the phrase is completely gone -- it has the | same information Wikipedia has. Are you claiming that | article and Wikipedia are both just making things up | here? | tptacek wrote: | The headline of this article is "Google Removes 'Don't Be | Evil' Clause From Its Code of Conduct". There's really | not much to argue about here. Read headline, pull up code | of conduct, command-F search, done. | wcarss wrote: | Google removed the "don't be evil"-preface, which I | suppose technically isn't a "clause"... | | So really, you're implying the article claims something | more extreme than it _actually_ claims... which is a | little like starting your _own_ clickbait urban legend - | how meta! | tptacek wrote: | The article opens: | | _Google's unofficial motto has long been the simple | phrase "don't be evil." But that's over, according to the | code of conduct that Google distributes to its employees. | The phrase was removed sometime in late April or early | May, archives hosted by the Wayback Machine show._ | [deleted] | charcircuit wrote: | Google never removed it. | | https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct/ | corobo wrote: | It used to be their motto. It's now a footnote in their | code of conduct. | | Don't Be Evil was relegated to a weird basement desk and | had its stapler taken off it back in 2018. | basch wrote: | I'm shocked they didn't pull the "we said Facebook would be | free, not meta checkmarks." | | Imagine being able to rename your company to exempt yourself | from the terms you wrote, because your new name isn't in the | terms. | kps wrote: | Renaming the company is extreme, but Steve Jobs at Apple | renamed projects at least twice (Mac OS 7.7, Rhapsody) to | back out of commitments. | [deleted] | dgudkov wrote: | "It's free and it always will be" disappears together with | zero-interest rates. | KKKKkkkk1 wrote: | Remember when Twitter instituted a forever policy of remote | work that lasted a whole of two years? | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/10/01/twitter... | echelon wrote: | That was Jack Dorsey. Jack Dorsey doubled down on the policy | for his other company, Square. Some of their leadership and | highest ranking employees are fully remote. I'd bet against | this policy ending. | | Elon canceled WFH for a multitude of reasons. Mainly to | encourage willing employees to leave and those that remained | to work harder. | moomin wrote: | If you still believe people work harder in the office I | don't know what to tell you. | chillbill wrote: | There are some very valid reasons why it should be | encouraged to work from the office, and yea they do | include productive hard work, I've heard this first hand | from both bosses working in big and small companies and | from employees. The group that appreciates work from | office and has noticeable productivity improvement is new | recruits and fresh grads that move to get a job, as they | need new friends, and if there's no office culture and | work colleagues to have lunch with or at least the | occasional AW, then they get lonely, unproductive and | they eventually leave. | | For older more mature people who have families it's an | amazing gift to be able to work from home, for some it | absolutely isn't. The point is that you can decide how to | run things in your company and try to be flexible. | motbus3 wrote: | It is true in my opinion, but most bosses I heard just | think employees are cheating their work and this is | something I do not agree. | | I've worked for a company who had to go full remote due | to covid and productivity increase a lot because people | were not being bothered by senseless interruptions and | calls. | | When asked why move back to the office in a meeting where | people could ask "anything", the CEO just said he doesn't | believe in working from home and he does not want that | for the company but provided zero reasons for his | beliefs. :/ | | Also commuting is such a pain that it makes me feel | depressed. I took about 2h each leg and sometimes it was | even worse. I usually get so much earlier in the office | to avoid not being late and I had to simply not do | anything as I could never leaver earlier too :( | greenthrow wrote: | Your comment tells me you don't know what you are talking | about. I have been working in tech for more than two | decades, tons of that in offices and tons of it remote. | Different people thrive in different environments. Some | people who are very productive remotely will struggle in | an office. Some will do both in either. Some do better in | offices. Not every office is the same either. When Google | first started introducing the kind of office benefits | they did in the early 2000s people said silly things not | unlike your comment; those benefits "spoil" employees, | there's no way they will have good productivity when they | make the office like a resort hotel, etc. | | Don't be a reactionary. Think about things more and | you'll be right more often than you are now. | lumb63 wrote: | > Not every office is the same. | | This has been my experience as well. Also, not every | company is the same. When COVID hit, I started working | remote, and the company was very poorly equipped to deal | with work from home. Communication disappeared and | culture died out. I stopped being interested in my work | and left the team, and later, the company. | | Fast forward to my new company. It's remote-first. More | than half the workforce is remote and it saves the | company what I'd imagine to be a pretty sum in office | supplies, rent, etc. I'm hybrid now, but 90% of the time | is remote. I'm much happier now than in my old remote | experience. I don't have to commute and I haven't missed | out on any of the perks of an office because of the | company structure and techniques, and a few other | decisions by myself. | | The things I think are game changers: | | - Slack, or similar. My old company used Teams. It was | slow and buggy and I disliked it. Having channels is a | game changer for remote work! Being able to have channels | with many people creates a place for banter and common, | shared experiences. That makes a remote team feel much | more personal. | | - Having a good home office. My first stint with remote | work, I was ill prepared. I had no desk and was working | at the dining room table. I had no good peripherals, no | good chair, etc. Not a good environment. Now I have a | standing desk, a mouse and keyboard I enjoy, nice | monitors, a good chair, a separate area of the house | dedicated to work. This has made a huge difference in my | mindset. I'm "at work" by being in an area of my home I | reserved exclusively for work, and I'm comfortable in it. | I dread going into the office where the water doesn't | taste as good, the air is stale, there's little natural | light, I have limited control over my environment. I'm | now much more productive at home. As a bonus, I get back | an hour (or more, depending on traffic) of my day, and | save myself all the accompanying stress of commuting. | mulmen wrote: | In office employees definitely work harder. | | They spend time commuting. They suffer constant | distractions. They deal with physically relocating in the | office multiple times per day. They experience physical | discomfort in an environment they cannot control. | | What in office employees don't do is deliver more value | per minute to the company because they waste energy just | trying to exist in an office. | wayeq wrote: | yeah but... the free snacks... | [deleted] | elvis10ten wrote: | Why do we have to go completely for or against something. | There are pros and cons to both. Situations where one | trumps the other. Why can't we have both? | | > What in office employees don't do is deliver more value | per minute | | Isn't this contextual? | | > They spend time commuting | | Also this. Commute can be productive especially in cities | where people can safely cycle to the office. | | > They suffer constant distractions. | | Lots of the folks I meet in the office currently, have | more distractions at home. | | > They experience physical discomfort in an environment | they cannot control. | | "home" is not the opposite for many people. | lkrubner wrote: | People take a lot of time off when they work from home. I | am as guilty of this as anyone. People tend to focus more | on work while they are in an office. Also, it is much | easier for managers to organize the work when the people | being organized are within line-of-site. The pattern I've | seen emerge at New York City startups is: | | 1. the leadership and most important employees meet at | the office 3 to 4 days a week. | | 2. less important employees are allowed to work from home | | The workers in group 2 are in direct competition with | outsourcing firms in India, Vietnam, Brazil, etc. If you | are just an average frontend programmer, and allowed to | work from home, there is a good chance that your work can | be sent overseas. So workers in this group are seeing | more downward pressure on their wages, and have a more | precarious position. | TheCleric wrote: | I call bull on this. I work HARDER at home. When there's | no clean delineation between where you work and where you | live it's a lot easier to work late or on the weekend | because your commute is all of 10 seconds. | | This is absolutely unhealthy behavior, but my WFH | problems have never been because I'm slacking off since | I'm at home. | | People with integrity will work. People without integrity | will find ways of avoiding work. Location doesn't matter. | Hire or work with the former; avoid the latter. | cat_plus_plus wrote: | Well, I am not going to waste time I spend in the office | on working. Not after the pandemic and realizing human | society can be taken away at blink of an eye. Have an | hour and a half lunch, talk to teammates about their | lives. Work is for home. | echelon wrote: | I didn't say that. | | Also, think about those on an H-1B. Their options are | limited. | mc32 wrote: | Some do and are able to manage their time very well; | others cannot and without the structure of the office are | left floundering and apt to not be available for | communication for prolonged periods... | Havoc wrote: | Ad supported _and_ paid. Oh joy | tarkin2 wrote: | I guess it could fight against fake profiles manipulating the | online social commons | blobster wrote: | We already do identity verification in the real world, it's | called government issued IDs. | | There should be opt-in OS-level identity verification based on | zero knowledge proofs and tied to your government-issued digital | ID. This also solves issues like preventing minors from accessing | adult sites, etc. | | I should not have to verify with 1000 third parties and hand over | my personal data and then hope it's handled properly and doesn't | get leaked. We have zero knowledge proofs and we can get OS | makers to make this seamless for us. | gjsman-1000 wrote: | Yes... but then you have the same arguments that are used to | claim Voter ID is voter suppression... | epgui wrote: | Not if it's opt-in and not required to access critical | services. | lmm wrote: | People want to use this for critical services. I already | found I couldn't contact my country's passport agency | except by Twitter, for example. | mertd wrote: | Then what is the value proposition? | gonzo41 wrote: | In other countries, they exist, to vote you just register | with the independent voting commission, and on the day they | confirm your registered address and give you the paper forms. | No voter id required. | | The OP can verify with proper ID and be safe. The gov just | needs to regulate that rather than keep copies of all the | originals. They just have something like a checkbox, where | you're either verified or not and a human / smart system is | involved and no record is permanently kept of the docs. | | Anyway, I don't anticipate this feature working out for meta. | mgraczyk wrote: | This uses a government ID for the actual identity and most of | the "verification". I'm not sure what more you're looking for? | Facebook can't use zKP because existing government IDs don't | support that. | | And there is no OS in this case, it's a product feature for | Facebook that allows users of Facebook to be told that Facebook | verified the account's government ID. | nibbleshifter wrote: | There should be none of those things. | | Fuck that. | Traubenfuchs wrote: | The EU now has eIDAS. All it lacks is widespread adoption. | everdrive wrote: | >There should be opt-in OS-level identity | | This will be the end of a lot of things, to include the | internet we grew up with in the 90s. It's holding on by a hair, | but you can still visit personally-owned and hosted websites, | and not run any non-free code. | wfbarks wrote: | * Tim Cook has entered the chat * | [deleted] | Overtonwindow wrote: | Is this in reaction to, or because of Twitter? Many seemed yo | have denounced the paid verification feature, but does this | signal that it's something people will pay for? | ibejoeb wrote: | Perhaps neither. The post indicates that it's rolling out in | Australia first. Australia has been, for years, working toward | tying social media use to authenticated identity. | | Imagine paying for this... | dawnerd wrote: | Likely something they've been working on way longer than it was | a thought at Twitter. | kjksf wrote: | Uber re-wrote their 1 million loc mobile app in 3 months. | | How much time should it take to implement a subscription | payment? | | With all the respect to Facebook scale, more than 1 month | would be a failure. | | I'm not saying that Facebook did it because Twitter did it, | but the timing of it seems more than a coincidence and they | are using the same justification for doing it as Twitter. | | It's quite likely that Twitter doing it successfully overcame | the risk aversion that large corporations are oversupplied | with. | | https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/uber-app-rewrite-yolo/ | dawnerd wrote: | Facebook isn't a start up, thinks are not moving as quick | as you think. The actual development probably went fast but | the PM meetings, legal, etc all take a long time. I bet | this has been in the works in some form since Apple's | crackdown on tracking. | kumarvvr wrote: | The format of pages, content structure and reach of facebook, | linked to real world profiles and people, means that having a | verified account makes a lot more sense. | | Twitter is an announcement platform. Facebook is a discussion | platform. Comments, replies to comments, no content length | limit, ability to upvote, etc. | DethNinja wrote: | It is valuable for business administrator accounts but I don't | see the value for the average user. | qualudeheart wrote: | Elon has proven a point. | kundi wrote: | We had a case where our ad account got hacked through an agency | that was managing it and set up ads for enormous amounts, which | drained all our funds within 2 days. After praising and trying to | get it solved and refunded, after 6 months we still haven't come | to a conclusion with Facebook's poor customer service. During | that time we were unable to use their platform to recover the | funds on the ad accounts. I'm not sure how they plan to improve | the customer service, but this attempt just feels like pouring | more frustration to our team with Facebook. | xwdv wrote: | You know I hope this is the start of finally normalizing paid | subscriptions for social networks, because it means eventually | someone may try to build a social network funded purely by | subscriptions rather than ads, and then we might finally have | simple timelines again that aren't focused on maximizing user | views and retention through algorithms. The result can be a less | enraging and addicting experience for users. | zh3 wrote: | Let's see - on Facebook the rules were always you had to use your | real name. | | Now they're charging us for it? | mcraiha wrote: | Will this generate any meaningful revenue for any company? AFAIK | Twitter has 300 000 global paying users. And I assume you would | need few million paying users before this has any meaningful | effect. https://www.theinformation.com/articles/musks-twitter- | has-ju... | abzolv wrote: | What about the verified status can change, that merits a | recurring charge versus a once-off charge? Can you suddenly morph | into "not you"? | tmikaeld wrote: | Other accounts flagging you for not being you, is a very real | thing on FB. | | I've had relatives loose two account into limbo, because of | this and yes - even after being "verified" on one of them. | | I guess the logic is that if someone took over your account, so | you're no longer you. | abzolv wrote: | Why would that merit a recurring charge? In other words, what | ongoing expense is incurred by the company to display a | particular icon next to your name? | tmikaeld wrote: | You'd only be verified as long as you're paying, stop | paying and that account is no longer verified. | toastal wrote: | I liked the Keybase model better for verification. Why do we need | monthly fees? | rejectfinite wrote: | HN this is not for you. This is for celebs and inportant people. | gowld wrote: | What a creative, innovative, idea that could only come from the | rare genius that deserves a $multi-billion ownership stake in the | company. | tleilaxu wrote: | Who on earth would look at what Twitter are doing right now and | think "Hey, we should copy that! That seems to be working well!" | | Facebook... apparently. | Someone1234 wrote: | It is worth noting that Meta is also in a financial death | spiral, just like Twitter, so the comparison doesn't just stop | there. | | They've made a massive gamble on pivoting to VR to save them | from irrelevance but that seemingly has already flopped. | poopypoopington wrote: | "Financial death spiral" | | $120B in revenue, $20B in profit last year | Someone1234 wrote: | That's a 4.47% decline year-over-year. Stock -15% YOY vs | -5% for the SP500. | | Unless they pivot soon, they're in deep trouble, with a | declining user base (particularly young people) and a | consistent loss in ad revenues. One big problem Meta has is | they went "all in" on a VR bet, that isn't working. | rvz wrote: | "deep trouble" | | In 'deep trouble' with 2 billion daily active users on | each platform: Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, | resulting in the stock doubling in less than 3 months of | screaming about the chorus of the end of times for Meta. | | I guess betting against HN is somewhat a profitable move | when everyone was scared to buy the stock at $88. | jaapbadlands wrote: | What makes you say "isn't working"? VR and the Metaverse | are long term bets, they're not meant to be working yet. | Far too early to write off as failures. | xiphias2 wrote: | Ads are more important in an infinite money low interest rate | environment. | | Now that they are coming back a closer to normal, providing | normal services start to make a bit more sense for companies. | celestialcheese wrote: | It's almost as if the media narrative around Twitter might not | match reality. | Someone1234 wrote: | By all means go ahead and inform us on the actual reality? | This is what I had read: | | > Overall, advertising spending by the top 30 companies fell | by 42% to an estimated $53.8 million for November and | December combined, according to Pathmatics, despite an | increase in spending by six of them. | | Is that inaccurate and if so, why? | celestialcheese wrote: | The next sentence of that quote is pretty illustrative. | | > Pathmatics said the previously unreported figures on | Twitter advertising are estimates. The firm bases its | estimates on technologies that track ads on desktop | browsers and the Twitter app as well as those that mimic | user experience. | | > But the company said those estimates do not account for | deals advertisers may receive from Twitter, or promoted | trends and accounts. "It is possible the spending data | could be higher for some brands" if Twitter is offering | incentives, Pathmatics said in an email. | | It's all speculation across the board - people want musk to | finally fail, and that possibility produces some delicious | schadenfreude. I am in this industry, and don't trust for a | second the estimates "Pathmatics" cites. Everytime I've | seen these types estimates on properties where I know the | real numbers, they are off significantly, in both | directions. | | The numbers come from comps, and some sampling of Desktop | ad impressions and a twitter client. That's so far away | from what the real numbers are that it's just a fuzzy | guess. | | 1 - https://www.euronews.com/next/2023/01/19/twitter-musk- | consum.... | Waterluvian wrote: | Twitter went from an unprofitable business to a very | unprofitable business. It may be comforting to call it a | "media narrative" but facts are facts. Maybe they can somehow | turn it around but I don't see how. | urmish wrote: | this is straight up false. | flangola7 wrote: | Which part? It's public knowledge that Twitter was barely | afloat before Musk. Since then most of the pumps | (advertisers) keeping water out of the ship have been | lost overboard. | | Twitter's debt management alone is a billion dollars per | month. | hotpotamus wrote: | Got any financial documents about it that you'd care to | share? I'm sure they'd be of interest. I was also under | the impression that Musk blew a huge hole in the finances | of an already marginal business, but I don't think I or | anyone besides Twitter insiders actually have the numbers | now. | vishal0123 wrote: | Calling it "facts are facts" without any source does not | make it true. | Waterluvian wrote: | You're right. I had something to say but didn't take the | time to support it. | | https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/02/10/tech/twitter-top- | advertis... | vishal0123 wrote: | TBH, that is the definition of media narrative. I don't | see any dollar value in the report for twitter losses. It | could be that the market is flexible and those | advertisers were replaced by someone else(not saying that | happened, but the article is hardly proof of twitter's | losses) | Waterluvian wrote: | I think it becomes troublesome when the data is | confidential and the company is private. Do we just not | talk about anything when we don't have hard data? | | On the other hand, they are reporting a study that they | may have even paid for and don't actually share the | details of the study. So I certainly see your point. | | On the other other hand, I think the "soft" signals like | Elon asking people to hit the like button for ads, or the | various reports of orgs pulling their ad campaigns | suggests that there is general distress. Which is what's | on my mind when I think it's more than a "narrative," | which I tend to interpret as hand wavy "media bias" used | to explain away anything that doesn't support one's own | narrative. | cinntaile wrote: | That doesn't sound accurate. Considering all the lay-offs | and other cost cuts it should have gone from very | unprofitable to unprofitable. | Waterluvian wrote: | Over half their advertisers have yet to return. Might be | why Elon is personally promoting ads. | dmix wrote: | Source? | | Edit: 625 out of 1000 top companies advertising in sept | weren't advertising in first weeks of Jan. | | https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/10/tech/twitter-top- | advertiser-d... | jackson1442 wrote: | They're also saddled with billions in interest payments | on Elon's debt now, so markedly worse off than before. | micromacrofoot wrote: | what is the reality? pretty hard to find anything positive to | counter how much ad revenue twitter has lost | lagniappe wrote: | [dead] | CharlesW wrote: | I personally like this. However, the pricing is bonkers and | demonstrates how out of touch Zuck is. | | "It's one banana, Michael. What could it cost, $10?" -- Lucille | Bluth | | Sorry Meta, I'm not giving you $576/year (family of 4) ongoing. | Validate that I am who I say I am for a one-time fee of $99, or | $19/person/year, and I'm in. I'll even pony up $29/person/year | for a "no ads" plan. | shp0ngle wrote: | It would make sense as a 12 usd one-time payment. But as an | ongoing service, it's laughably overpriced. | | 12 dollars per month??? for a blue badge? Really? | digianarchist wrote: | Thousands of rubes doing just that for Twitter Blue. Zuck would | be foolish to not take advantage of the same market. | [deleted] | hypothesis wrote: | They absolutely should charge it if people are willing to pay | that much. | shp0ngle wrote: | Well let's see who actually pays 12 dollars ongoing monthly | payments for a blue badge. | | that's more than basic monthly netflix | impulser_ wrote: | I don't think the target audience of this service is regular | user, but instead they are targeting companies and influencers | who would definitely pay this price to protect their brand and | image on FB and Instagram. | mr90210 wrote: | When I left Facebook in 2016/17 and later Twitter in 2020, I | didn't know how how much freedom and mental ease I was buying for | my future-self. | replicanteven wrote: | Shortsighted. If they're willing to stoop this low, they should | have started by selling multiple kinds of badges for smaller | monthly amounts. | | $0.99/mo for emojis. $1.99/ to show your support for various | causes. $3.99/ for sports teams. $4.99/ for ID verification. | $0.49/ of your red cross badge goes to earthquake survivors. | | Like virtual hats, but for social media. | anonuser123456 wrote: | "I am not a bot/intelligence services construct/foreign troll | masquerading as an citizen etc.". Is a pretty valuable service | for the network. | | Right now it's a property not advertised to network | participants. But in the near future you might seem the | following above unverified accounts posting about controversial | topics | | "Careful. This person could not be identified. They may be a | bot or falsifying their identify to misrepresent opinion" | | At which point, the value of verification goes up. Maybe. | janalsncm wrote: | It's not a valuable service to me though. All of my friends | have verified me in real life. An extra badge doesn't add | anything. | | Twitter is different because I assume most people haven't met | their followers IRL. | anonuser123456 wrote: | I have family members that have hundreds of people they've | never met on their friends lists. Some of those | personalities are obvious scammers/grifters etc. But aging | people have diminished capacity for detecting that kind of | stuff. | | Example: | | My MIL is 'friends' with a prominent US based surgeon who | is also a leading founder in a biotech company. He | convinced her to buy stock in said biotech company, when | its price was peaking. Of course it was a classic pump and | dump and the value plummeted a few weeks later. | | Would identity guard rails have saved her? Possibly not. | But telling her "if you don't see a verified XYZ they are a | scammer" might move the needle. | wombat_trouble wrote: | > "I am not a bot/intelligence services construct/foreign | troll masquerading as an citizen etc.". Is a pretty valuable | service for the network. | | It is valuable to Facebook to maintain a healthy pltform. But | is it really worth $15 a month to you to broadcast this to | others? | | Unless the culture of the platform shifts to a point where | non-verified accounts are considered second-class, the only | reason to pay this is basically as a status symbol. In which | case, I think the tiered approach makes more sense. And maybe | "Facebook Gold" for people who want to pay even more for a | badge.... | | Twitter had their checkmarks established as an artificially | constrained status symbol you couldn't buy with money... and | then, under Musk, they altered the terms of the deal by | saying you have to pay, but you get tangible perks in terms | of platform features, visibility of your content, etc. Unless | Facebook wants to do that, I can't see people paying this | much on their own... | anonuser123456 wrote: | Personally, I wouldn't pay Meta because their platform is | already beyond salvageable IMO. | | But in principle, I think networks should charge their | users and provide services, and identity is the most-in- | need service the internet lacks. | | Will users pay for identity? Probably not, but one can | dream. | neverrroot wrote: | Would be glad to pay, if my privacy will be respected, and I | won't just be now paying money for the same stuff. Actually I'd | rather more companies transition to paying models, instead of | spying on me however way they can to ensure they can make money. | Would you also? Or would you rather have it free regardless of | what that implies? | benatkin wrote: | If it was fair it wouldn't verify itself. | hownottowrite wrote: | Maybe just fix targeted ads and get back to making money? | [deleted] | DueDilligence wrote: | .. yawn. next. | thinkingemote wrote: | Genius to announce this after Twitter. Musk gets all the flak and | takes the weight so they can do the same thing and everyone will | think it's cool as they are used to the idea and Zuckerberg is | nothing special to get inflamed about as he keeps himself quiet. | | Probably standard PR tactics than genius upon reflection! | kevincrane wrote: | ...does anyone think this is cool? | nojs wrote: | I think the bigger news is they're offering "priority customer | support" for a monthly fee. Imagine if this became a trend among | other big tech companies. | barbazoo wrote: | Imagine that. No wait, lots of tech companies that have | customers (i.e. one way or another directly paying for stuff) | offer "priority support" (i.e. 1 on 1 with an actual human). | It's expensive and eats i to your profits but it's necessary. | anonymousab wrote: | In an ideal world that could be nice. In practice the allure of | ignoring support problems under the guise of "the automation | says there's nothing we can do" is far too high, and eventually | pervades all manner of tech company user accounts unless | legislatively punished. | | As we see with paid Google customers, business and otherwise. | kevinventullo wrote: | I don't really care about my Facebook account but I would | absolutely pay $100+/yr to ensure I have some recourse should I | ever be locked out of my gmail account. | devnullbrain wrote: | Why not use another email provider for <$100/yr? | kevinventullo wrote: | Honestly, momentum. | amf12 wrote: | This already exists btw. Have you checked out Google | Workspace Individual subscription? | 0cf8612b2e1e wrote: | I have heard about many gotchas that appear if an account | is "upgraded" to Workspace. No longer on the happy path, so | a variety of services and features no longer work the same | as a free account. | StrLght wrote: | I believe it's already a thing with a lot of companies. | | I worked at a company that had restaurant delivery app, very | similar to Uber Eats / DoorDash (but not in the US). ~10% of | top spenders there got priority support. | pleb_nz wrote: | I think it might already be. A few times in the last month I've | stumbled across sites with this offering when | joining/subscribing (the names escape me now) and everytime I | thought who would pay for that? Now you mention it clicked | maybe it's a new thing? | logicalmonster wrote: | This is an interesting sneaky way of making social media a | subscription service for many, but I'd think the benefits for | any business seriously using social media are probably good | enough to justify the fee. That said, why offer 2 different | payments for web and mobile? This just introduces too much | confusion for an entirely new concept like this. | | Anything that gives people some possibility of human contact in | the event of a problem is a welcome baby step forward, but this | isn't really good enough. If Meta screws up something with | blocking/banning your account and you're not subscribed, are | you still completely unable to get in touch with anybody, for | any price? These are the people slipping through the gaps that | I worry about. | ShrimpHawk wrote: | >That said, why offer 2 different payments for web and | mobile? | | Mobile (Google Play, Apple App Store) takes a cut from | transactions made through them. Companies don't want to lose | money. Companies have been doing this for as long they could. | It is not anything new. | | https://support.google.com/googleplay/android- | developer/answ... | neogodless wrote: | ... and eliminates all ads from your user experience? | fullshark wrote: | I think it's for content creators / official accounts, so | basically people want to advertise or do public relations | moreso than consumers. | DueDilligence wrote: | .. yawn. next. | wcerfgba wrote: | Can anyone steelman an argument that this move won't make | verification and blue ticks effectively useless for determinig | the authenticity of accounts? | | My initial thought is that this creates an incentive for the | companies to have more permissive verification processes, since | that would make sales easier and reduce costs. | [deleted] | neogodless wrote: | Previous related submissions: | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34859919 1 hour ago (22 | comments) | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34858691 3 hours ago (77 | comments) | | Both point to Facebook post by Mark Zuckerberg: | | > 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. | jasongill wrote: | > extra impersonation protection against accounts claiming to | be you | | My tech-ignorant father-in-law who has 3 friends on Instagram | had a fake profile created that was identical to his and | matched his username except 1 minor character difference. I | reported it to Facebook and the reply was "We get so many | requests, we haven't had time to review yours, so we are | closing it out. Sorry." | | Funny that now you can pay $12/mo for them to... maybe not | ignore reports of impersonators? | wongarsu wrote: | "we were overwhelmed with requests, so now we charge money to | process them" sounds reasonable. It also aligns incentives: | Facebook now has a reason to have enough support people to | respond to requests from paying customers, otherwise they | might stop paying. | mmastrac wrote: | It's cute, but the joke's on them: I don't really use Facebook | for anything but marketplace these days. Cutting social media use | has been a great boost for my mental health. | Imnimo wrote: | Maybe I'm behind the times, but isn't the whole deal of Facebook | that I've chosen to be friends with these people who I know in | real life? Why do I need them to be verified? | wodenokoto wrote: | You don't. | | This is for the Lady Gaga's and Elon Musks of facebook. | Followers want to be able to know if they are following the | real deal, and the real deal wants to be certain that they can | be differentiated from the fakes. | wg0 wrote: | There would be 20,000 such Stars paying 10 dollars a month. | Than what? | Imnimo wrote: | I must not understand how Facebook works anymore. I didn't | realize you can follow people, I thought you just sent mutual | friend requests. | [deleted] | bsaul wrote: | Anyone else find this announcement totally pathetic ? | | In what world does anyone care about meta impersonation anymore ? | Does anyone make public announcement on meta beside meta | employees ? | jonathankoren wrote: | Worse yet, it's clear they have no ideas or understanding why | this was a bad idea at Twitter. | | It's just copying for copying sake. | anonuser123456 wrote: | Was it a bad idea at twitter? Or was Musks handling of the | whole situation just crap? | | If Musk had made an impassioned case about why, and engaged | peoples concerns in a grown-up way it might have gone better. | bionade24 wrote: | It certainly was the handling and the strategy how they'd | introduce it. First, they obviously should haven't | repurposed an existing badge. Im my opinion, setting a | lower price in the 1st three months and openly | communicating that the price will increase a bit seems like | a choice to get quick adoption. 8$/month is too high when | people can't experience the value of it yet. | labrador wrote: | > In what world does anyone care about meta impersonation | anymore? | | My 84 yr old mother does. It really annoys her when someone | steals her profile picture, makes an account in her name and | starts sending friend requests to her friends. I told her | Facebook could fix this easily but they don't want to. | | Now I can tell her they want to charge her to fix it. | ceejayoz wrote: | Verification won't even fix it, anyways. People taken in by | the scammers aren't gonna go hunting for a verification | badge. | | "You are already friends with someone by this name" warnings | would be a lot more helpful. | hackernewds wrote: | are they scammers? | gowld wrote: | Yes. Or, if the target person is famous, it could be used | for defamation or harassment. | labrador wrote: | It's happened to my mother several times. Nearest I can | tell, they want to see her non-public posts for advertising | purposes and this is why Facebook doesn't fix it. More | money for them. It causes her a significant amount of | distress, so simply put, Mark Zuckerberg abuses the | elderly. | [deleted] | advisedwang wrote: | Will this actually solve this? Her account may be verified | but that doesn't stop another unverified account from | spoofing her. | | The announcement mentions "impersonation protection against | accounts claiming to be you" but I'm skeptical how advanced | that's going to be. It can't stop name reuse (because real | people have the same name). And preventing someone creating a | second account with the same image would be perfectly | possible today, with no verification system, so I doubt | that's it either. | anonuser123456 wrote: | It's a chicken and egg problem. You want people to start | ignoring unverified accounts and make the social | expectation that only verified accounts are good. But | people. won't do so until it's common. | | Once established it's a great network effect. But networks | with effects are hard to start. | janalsncm wrote: | I don't know what goes into the verification system but if | it requires an ID that would prevent most amateur spoofs. | jjeaff wrote: | You are assuming that everyone the spoofer contacts is | going to know that grandma is a verified user and so this | can't be her. Of course, the vast majority of people | would not give it a second thought and so this would have | no effect on the spoofing problem. | hammock wrote: | We may find it pathetic for a different reason - when everyone | was so down on Elon taking over Twitter and how he was running | it into the ground, and now Meta is saying actually that's not | a bad idea, in fact it's a great idea and we're going to do it | even to the point of taking a huge blow to our ego | anonuser123456 wrote: | Asking people to pay for services is always a good thing. If | Metas only revenue is information peddling, expect the lowest | common denominator product. | | And anything pushing internet identity forward is also good. | With the rise of chatgpt verification of "human" is going to be | important. | agilob wrote: | So I get to be verified ONCE, but pay monthly for the same thing | I have to do to unblock my hacked account? No extra benefits, | like fewer ads and sponsored tailored content? | [deleted] | seydor wrote: | Quite desperate of these companies to charge their most important | assets, the influencers/publishers. $10 is the cost to run their | own website with complete editorial freedom, and if people want | to follow them, get an RSS reader. The whole advantage of | FB/twitter is that it 's cheaper and broader. | | And this model doesnt even scale up. FB makes ~$60 per user/year | which is comparable. If people start verifying en masse, they | dont have the capacity to really verify the users identity, that | the users haven't sold their accounts etc etc. They are shooting | their moneymaker here | | What i like about these payment schemes is that they put a real | value on the company, based on what customers are willing to pay | for the service, not the nebulous advertising return. The results | of these programs should also inform investors about the true | value of the companies. | [deleted] | weberer wrote: | >which will let users verify their accounts using a government ID | and get a blue badge, as it looks to help content creators grow | and build communities | | Useless bullshit. I was hoping for a paid model where you can get | rid of ads for good. Instagram has become unusable over the past | year as they shove ads into more and more places. Its like | reading a book and every time you turn the page, you have a | random chance of getting smacked in the face. | newaccount74 wrote: | I don't have an Instagram account, so please excuse my | ignorance, but I was under the assumption that a lot of content | on Instagram is "sponsored content" anyway? So you're looking | at ads anyway? | ceejayoz wrote: | Depends how you curate your feed. | Schiphol wrote: | Is there a way to curate away those sponsored posts? | ceejayoz wrote: | Sure. Unfollow when you see one. | caskstrength wrote: | Are you from 2012 or something? Instagram has been | showing promoted posts from accounts I'm not following | for ages. | ceejayoz wrote: | Those are just ads. The posts up thread making a | distinction between ads and sponsored content I take to | mean influencers shilling company products/services | directly in posts outside of the Facebook ad network. | schrodinger wrote: | I definitely see posts from accounts I'm not following. | lancesells wrote: | Don't follow people with more than 5000 followers. | kylecordes wrote: | Instagram used to be mostly photos from people I knew or | followed or whatever. Nowadays it is 95% | ads/sponsored/influencer content. Almost pointless to visit. | But I think this might be a result mostly of people not | posting photos as much. | criddell wrote: | You can turn off their recommendations (stuff you don't | follow) 30 days at a time. I do that and only see stuff | posted by my friends, and ads. | technion wrote: | The irony is that the most promoted company on Facebook isn't | paying for those ads with sponsorship. | | I just opened Facebook and here's the top "suggested post". | Of course it's a "news" story, which is itself just a repost | of someone's Tiktok video. The Tiktok logo is prominently | displayed in the tumbnail. | | https://imgur.com/a/YJoiR4A | | In between all that content, is Facebook Reels. Most promoted | Reels are just reposts from Tiktok. There was literally a | "Content Creator" named "It's gone viral on Tiktok!" that for | a while was the most commonly promoted Facebook reel I would | see. | | Edit: here's a screenshot of Reels: | https://imgur.com/a/OhVvbSf | [deleted] | profstasiak wrote: | problam with paying to stop ads is - the people most willing to | pay to stop ads are richer than average and meta earns more | from serving ads to them than they are willing to pay | blehn wrote: | YouTube made 28bn in ad revenue and probably somewhere in the | range of 5-10bn (and growing) in ad-free subscription revenue | last year, so it's clearly a viable model even if what you | say is partially true. That said, I'd argue that YouTube's | content is far more valuable than Meta's, and its ads are far | more intrusive, so the incentive to pay is much higher. | hyperbovine wrote: | That's a good point, I had never looked at it that way. But | here's my counterpoint: the people willing to pay to stop | seeing ads are the ones who are most hostile, and therefore | least susceptible, to online advertising. I've been online | since the early 90s and I could probably count on one hand | the number of times I've intentionally clicked on an ad. | playingalong wrote: | Still, I guess you are not that certain how many times an | ad has affected your subconscious and triggered some change | in your commercial decisions later on. The whole brand | awareness, etc. | freediverx wrote: | [dead] | fredgrott wrote: | Question, does this even matter? | | We can already buy any fake press release...verification is just | a visual cue online akin to a press release indicating that its | value is now somewhat below zero. | kvgr wrote: | This will be retracted in 2 weeks. | manishsharan wrote: | Can we all take a moment to enjoy the sounds of social media's | business model imploding ? | danShumway wrote: | Notably, it appears you'll still see ads and get tracked. | | Websites tracking their users and shoving ads in their faces | isn't really the "alternative" to paid services. It's something | paid services often do in addition to charging money, because | they're unwilling to leave any money on the table in any | situation, and you can always get more money by charging your | users _and_ harvesting their data. | rileyphone wrote: | The users willing to pay for a monthly subscription are much | higher value for ads than those who don't, simple as. | nixcraft wrote: | Elon Musk said there would be another subscription option for a | Twitter app like YouTube premium with zero ads for those who | can afford it. He said the price would be more than Twitter | blue, and work is in progress. The question is, how many | premium ad-free subscriptions can one person get? YouTube? | Tumblr? Twitter? Facebook? Insta? It could easily be $100 per | month. | danShumway wrote: | > He said the price would be more than Twitter blue | | This is the other thing that pops up, in the rare instances | where services like this are offered, they're often pretty | inflated. It's notable that Youtube Premium comes with a | music service and it's impossible to de-bundle them. I | honestly think that part of the reason for this is to make | people think that ad-free services aren't economically | feasible. | | I'm supposed to believe that the cost to Twitter to deliver | ad-free and tracking-free text streams is _higher_ than the | cost for Netflix /Google to stream unlimited HD video to all | of my devices on demand. | | > The question is, how many premium ad-free subscriptions can | one person get? YouTube? Tumblr? Twitter? Facebook? Insta? It | could easily be $100 per month. | | The thing is, what we're seeing is a push to monetize more | services through subscriptions anyway. Like, this is a better | argument if Twitter and Facebook aren't both pushing people | to give them roughly $10 a month anyway. | | I think that the advertising industry and traditional media | companies have sold people on this idea that ads are somehow | magically keeping the Internet free and and it would collapse | otherwise, but if the trend continues and they all start | charging anyway, then... | wh0knows wrote: | > I'm supposed to believe that the cost to Twitter to | deliver ad-free and tracking-free text streams is higher | than the cost for Netflix/Google to stream unlimited HD | video to all of my devices on demand. | | The price is not based on the cost to provide the service, | it's based on the current or potential revenue they can | bring in via ads. A company won't switch revenue models if | it means a 50% reduction in revenue. | amanzi wrote: | I don't understand why Meta and Twitter are charging a monthly | fee for this. Surely, it's in their best interest to have as many | verified users as possible on their respective platforms? Surely, | they want to get to the point where there are so many verified | people, that you don't trust anything that comes from a non- | verified user? I understand there's a massive logistical | challenge with verifying users across the globe, but there must | be a better way than charging a non-trivial monthly fee for the | "benefit" of being verified. | blastonico wrote: | I believe they have made some projections before charging for | it. So, I assume that only a small amount is willing to pay for | it. | | There can be an explosion in the first months, but most people | will cancel the subscription when they realize how useless this | thing is. | | I believe it tends to normalize in a curve not so distant from | what we have today. | college_physics wrote: | $12 per month and user for a "social experience" that still | tracks you and spams you is an insane amount. | | If you consider that amount x 1000 for a very modest open source | fediverse instance hosting circa one thousand users, that is more | than enough to sustain admins, moderators and spare change for | some development. | | The economic model of social media never made any sense and its | hard to see how it will sustain going forward. | baby wrote: | This definitely looks like it targets big pages and | personalities. If that's true then that's really cheap no? | | If it targeted normal users like me (I pay for twitter blue, for | example) then it would let me do things like: | | - set chronological newsfeed | | - see less or no ads | | That's it. That's enough to get me to pay | Joeri wrote: | Facebook gets about 50 billion usd / year of ad revenue in the | U.S. for 226 million mau. That boils down to about $18 / month | / user of ad revenue. | | Is it worth $20 / month to get no ads and a chronological feed? | codq wrote: | No ads or tracking across all Meta platforms/pixels? I'd say | that's worth $20/month. | iamleppert wrote: | Imagine if Experian announced that you need to pay $11.99/mo to | make your credit report secure and to stop your identity from | being stolen and allow you to do something about it if it was. | Sound familiar? | | The only thing that's going to stop every random company you have | an account with from trying to extort a fee just to make sure an | account is actually you is going to be regulation. | ssnistfajen wrote: | This is why I laugh when people here pretend that SV isn't also | built upon copying, stealing, and cheating. | jfengel wrote: | I wonder if this information will be available to people using | Facebook as single sign in. | | Many sites are happy to have free accounts but only one to a | person. They want to avoid sock puppets and abuses like spam. If | you had to pay even a tiny bit it would drastically cut down on | it, but most users won't. | | If everyone had a pay for account somewhere that they could use | elsewhere, others could piggyback off of it. (It might even be | worth a small fee to Facebook, for a service they provide very | cheaply.) | dagorenouf wrote: | Twitter iterates like a startup and Facebook steals what works | like a big old company. | zeroonetwothree wrote: | It's not like Twitter invented the concept of a paid | subscription | dagorenouf wrote: | they invented the concept of paid verification for a major | social platform and everybody dunked on them, now others copy | them. Kind of like when Apple removes jack port - people dunk | on them - then every competitor removes it too. | giancarlostoro wrote: | They are several years late to this. I think had Facebook done | this before smartphones took their Facebook Games marketshare and | done perks for subscribers they could of really gotten a lot of | subscribers. We are seeing as Apple cracks down on advertisers | snooping more than they should that social media platforms will | have to switch to subscription to supplement their income loss. | andrewstuart wrote: | This is huge - a product I have wanted for a long time. | | I assume/hope this will be available to third party sites so we | can verify users. | CatWChainsaw wrote: | Please say April 1st came a month and a half early. | | Although I do wonder if this is the opening salvo in sending | "Facebook: it's free and always will be" the same way as Google's | "don't be evil"... | fatih-erikli wrote: | Noone takes android seriously which is good. | swarnie wrote: | https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FhJheQDX0AEqKPw.jpg | | So it begins.... | marcopicentini wrote: | Why should I pay to say the truth? It should be the bot to pay to | convince for its lie | bmitc wrote: | It seems to be a common theme to charge for something you already | provide. From taking away ports so you can charge for dongles, | adding in ads so that you have to pay to take them away, to | charging subscriptions for previously free services. | tmikaeld wrote: | In short: A subscription service that lets you verify your | account with a government ID, for $11.99/month/web or | $14.99/month on iOS. Support included. | | If this removed ads, added more controls on what you see and what | is shared/sold to 3rd party, I'd actually consider it! | | But ads are not mentioned and ads are probably worth more than | 12$/user/mo and.. this would probably help them track you | "better". | jefftk wrote: | Facebook makes $43/y per user on average [1], but it's $69/y in | Europe and $235/y in the US and Canada. | | And then there's the problem that the users most likely to pay | are more valuable than average to advertise to. | | [1] Worldwide quarterly ARPU x4: | https://www.statista.com/statistics/251328/facebooks-average... | tmikaeld wrote: | Even if it was 20$/mo (higher than top yearly average), I'd | consider it if it became a privacy service and focus shifted | from the users to the product. | replicanteven wrote: | The problem is that people who are willing to pay $20/mo | for privacy are much more valuable to advertisers than | those who can't. | | If those users go away, the average $/user from ads goes | down, because the only people seeing ads are those who are | too poor to avoid it. | | To an advertiser, poor people who direct their attention | towards whatever is put in front of them are worth a lot | less than rich people who carefully curate what their | attention is directed towards. It's grody, but that's the | advertising industry for you. | MichaelZuo wrote: | Right, someone willing to regularly pay $20/month is | probably worth closer to $40/month to potential | advertisers. | | It probably scales all the way up until $10k/month, which | is near the upper limit of what super-luxury brands, that | would buy ads online, can earn per customer. | | So the curious implication is that such services could be | 'free' or $20k/month. | | But with a changing advertising market and lower budgets, | FB might view the alignment of incentives more | beneficial. | DoctorOW wrote: | Counterpoint, the main demographic for this already uses | ad/tracker blockers. I'm sure Meta has some ways around | that but getting that $20/month is much easier from a | willing participant. | pclmulqdq wrote: | That is definitely not true. Tech workers and people who | are tech savvy use ad/tracker blockers, regardless of how | good of an ad target they are. They are a very small | slice of consumers with excess income. | | In other words, a lot of people who use ad blockers are | good ad targets, but the converse is not true. | dmix wrote: | The lack of ad blockers on mobile is the real sweet spot. | I pay for Youtube 100% to use it on mobile/ipad without | ads. So even ad-blocking privacy people still see lots of | ads if they use these apps. | antiframe wrote: | Mobile does not lack ad blockers. I use uBlock Origin on | Firefox without any problem. | grepfru_it wrote: | >Mobile | | Interesting, firefox on my iphone mobile[0] does not | allow this... | | [0] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/add-ons-firefox- | ios | antiframe wrote: | That's unfortunate. But saying that mobile lacks ad | blockers is a bit disingenuous given that the largest | mobile platform has a very good ad blocker. | | In a similar vein, the world does not lack ICE cars | because a minority of them are electric. | codq wrote: | Yep, I'd consider paying more, even. | | There's a reason their products are so engaging and sticky | --they're enjoyable to use! | | And they'd be significantly _more_ enjoyable if you didn 't | have the Eye of Sauron watching you and trying to | manipulate you at all times. | | I'd pay considerably for that. | leodriesch wrote: | I am wondering how this works out for YouTube with Premium. It | removes ads and is 12EUR/mo. | ProjectArcturis wrote: | For $12 a month I'd get a blue badge? | skilled wrote: | Hahaha. This is actually hilarious. They won't budge to change | and innovate so instead they copy and paste what Musk did on | Twitter and just leave it at "fuck it". | jmugan wrote: | If they would turn off the advertisements and let me control my | feed and notifications, it might pay. I'd be mad about it, but I | might pay. | dewey wrote: | The problem with this is that people usually underestimate what | they are worth to a company like Meta and "I'd be willing to | pay 5 bucks for no ads" is usually not above the LTV/month | threshold. | [deleted] | hackernewds wrote: | how much would you pay? | lordnacho wrote: | Same as YouTube Premium. | | FB without ads would be great, and might change Meta's | incentives going forward. | 0xdada wrote: | Not for me, personally. FB without ads still has no | interesting content for me. YouTube premium is the best | value for my money out of all my subscriptions due to | content. | | On Facebook the network effect that made it cool in the | beginning has now died and it will keep it from ever coming | back for the same reasons it was great in the beginning. | I'm very confident people I really care about will not | start posting there, and they probably have the same | thought process. It's just uncool. | jmugan wrote: | Not sure. I pay for GitHub just because I like it. | morpheos137 wrote: | "Free" and subsidised services online and in "Tech" e.g. uber are | just the same old monopolistic tactic of "dumping" to get market | share then jack up prices. | pessimizer wrote: | Does that mean that we can use fake names again? I mean, you can | get "facebook verified" just by getting locked out of your | account and having them demand photo ID to let you back in again. | Facebook certainly force-verified me. | timeon wrote: | > Does that mean that we can use fake names again? | | I still have one. | charcircuit wrote: | Facebook lets you create 4 additional profiles with pseudonyms | for users who don't want to use an account with their real | name. Your main account still needs to use your real name, but | you can just not use it. | | https://facebook.com/help/967154637433480 | kkthxbb wrote: | I would've never said that that you will have to pay to have | 12x12px icon next to your profile to confirm that you are really | you. | wongarsu wrote: | Makes perfect sense, it's an easy way to generate revenue from | everyone who earns money on Instagram. I wouldn't pay $12 each | month for a blue checkmark, but for nearly everyone who profits | from sponsorships or who advertises their business it's a cheap | way to get a bit of extra clout. | gkoberger wrote: | I don't want to sound like I'm defending Meta, but at least | there's _something_ behind this verification. | | On Twitter, there's just so many face-less spam troll accounts | that are verified, and all a blue check means is that the person | likes Elon enough to give him $8. At least Facebook requires a | government ID, and the verification confirms that the person is | who they say they are. | | (I do think if they really cared, especially in the face of | looming AI advancements, this would be free. This only really | works if most real people are verified, otherwise there's nothing | suspicious about a non-verified account.) | grepfru_it wrote: | >At least Facebook requires a government ID, and the | verification confirms that the person is who they say they are. | | I photoshopped my dad's driver's license 25 years ago. I used | it to successfully confirm to a website that I was over 18. I'm | pretty sure that method is still viable today | Alex3917 wrote: | > At least Facebook requires a government ID, and the | verification confirms that the person is who they say they are. | | But Facebook has already required this for years to run | advertisements. So they're now charging for the thing that they | were previously doing for everyone for free, making the site | less safe and secure. | CraigRood wrote: | Real-Verified is the next logical step. Twitter will being | following suit very soon. That said, how does this add value to | Meta? Isn't this just another indication that Meta through its | products sees less value in actual relationships and more in | algo-driven timelines? Snap seems to be the only social network | left that is personal. | freitzkriesler2 wrote: | Who here is part of the, " deleted my Facebook" club? | | _Raises hand_ | jawns wrote: | It's strange for ID verification to be presented as a | subscription offering, given that it should suffice to verify it | once (or for relatively long periods). | | Obviously, Meta is after that sweet sweet MRR. But the consumer | should recognize that they're paying for a one-time or infrequent | task as if it involves ongoing effort. | | From the consumer standpoint, a one-time fee makes much more | sense. | tmikaeld wrote: | That's probably why they baked in "support" into the offer. | | Maybe the logic with paying goes that, if you loose access to | the account for any reason - you can just stop paying and it | will no longer be verified. | anonylizard wrote: | I think pay-for-verification is going to be dominant on all real- | identity social media. | | Reason is simple: AI | | 1.You can now trivially create an avatar photo, of any level of | attractiveness, of any race, of any age. You can even reproduce | the same character reliably in different environments/costumes | via stable diffusion + LORA. 2. You can now easily create a | comment history on that account, thanks to ChatGPT. 3. You can | even produce voices reliably with just a few samples. | | There's no real defense against AI impersonation at scale, except | for charging-for-verification. The money drastically increases | the cost for impersonators and scammers/catfishers, and provides | resources on the other end to moderate impersonation. | stefan_ wrote: | Who cares? Is the AI gonna RSVP to my event? Haggle over my 2nd | hand item? Comment on whatever the local council has planned? | All these schemes tend to fall apart at the first contact with | reality. | | (Also, you are talking about "Facebook verifying users". They | can't even verify who is paying them for political ads, and | they certainly don't seem to care very much.) | urbandw311er wrote: | I think it's still a relevant problem we will face as a | society with regards to bot farms etc running social | interference (eg election propaganda) | notahacker wrote: | I think the pay-for-verification might solve those problems | ship sailed when Twitter decided that a symbol which had | previously meant they'd attempted verification could be given | to pretty much anyone who paid them $8 a month... | | Impersonation-at-scale depends on scale, not verification of | individual accounts as authentic people with authentic | notability and opinions, and impersonation not at scale | sometimes feels more motivated to pay the $8 than the person or | position being impersonated. | halJordan wrote: | I get the "i hate Twitter/elon" attitude, but the truth is | that the CA system has been dependent on pay-to-verify for | some time now and despite whatever grievances you have | against verisign or whoever it's brought us to today safely | enough. | joe_the_user wrote: | And the problem with pay for identity is you can buy other | people's identities. The news was full impersonations right | after Twitter initiated it's pay for blue check marks. That | we don't here about it now may just be a matter that the | news stopped caring. URL squatting was a problem for a long | time - the decision that trademark holder could seize | domains helped but a web address today isn't considered a | solid identity at this point so "the system working" is a | bit of an exaggeration. | | Also, I'd note the gp didn't bad-mouth Elon or Verisign so | your comment is a kind of riding a trolly false accusation. | m3kw9 wrote: | It helps because the cost of impersonating wont make sense | for a lot of people | anonuser123456 wrote: | Once/if consumers value identity this might change. | | If everyone on twitter were paying for verification, I think | twitter would be much more interested in defending the | sanctity of said system. | | As it stands, they are currently just trying to get the | feature out there and get people to pay. Getting it deployed | trumps making it perfect. | notahacker wrote: | They already had a verification feature deployed which | wasn't perfect but was reasonably strict. Then they debased | it for a new revenue stream. | | I don't see them making the _now that we 've got a bunch of | people paying for it, lets reduce our revenue by suddenly | becoming strict on it again_ decision. Or people taking the | badge _more_ seriously now it just means someone subscribed | to Twitter Blue | benced wrote: | Elon turning a $8 subscription into a culture war artifact | doesn't invalidate the idea of a subscribing for legitimacy | altogether. | notahacker wrote: | Agreed it doesn't completely invalidate it as a concept, | but Elon turning the highest profile _somewhat_ reliable | implementation of an authenticity badge into a culture war | artifact doesn 't exactly bode well for it being a social | media must-pay-for. The fact Facebook once aspired to be | the platform where everyone used their real name and now | can't be bothered to deactivate friendspamming sexbots | without most users caring suggests that ordinary people | won't exactly be queueing up to pay them $144 per annum | because of their inherent trustworthiness as a verifier | either. | | It'd probably work a bit on LinkedIn because of the nature | of the user base and lots of people already expensing | Premium accounts, but funnily enough I'm not sure LinkedIn | actually has that much of a fake account problem... | pessimizer wrote: | > a symbol which had previously meant they'd attempted | verification | | That's not what it meant. It was an award for being notable. | $8 is a fee that you pay to get verified. | notahacker wrote: | It was an award for being an _authentic_ notable person or | entity, on the basis that the notable people and entities | were most likely to be parodied or faked. Now it 's an | award for people that pay up | iLoveOncall wrote: | Sending a photoshopped ID to Facebook to get the verified badge | on your fake account is orders of magnitude easier than | everything you mention here. | | Those verifications are 100% useless for non public figures. | linuxftw wrote: | Or, you know, we can just go back to circa 2000 and tell people | not to trust everything they see on the internet as fact? | woeirua wrote: | Propaganda works. Even when people know it's probably fake. | shapefrog wrote: | > I think pay-for-verification is going to be dominant on all | real-identity social media. | | Bad actors are going to be happy to pay $10/20/30/40 a month to | scam people, its their job and livelihood. | verisimi wrote: | You're going to be tracked and traced everywhere, and you're | going to pay for the privilege. | | Amazing what they can get us to do! | | This is the reason musk bought twitter too, of course. | conceptme wrote: | It's kinda weird that it used to be a platform for people that | you know in real life, that's no longer the case and nothing has | taken It's place. | generated wrote: | I would pay a token amount to only show my friends' updates, | all my friends updates, in reverse chronological order. | likeabbas wrote: | BeReal is pretty nice for this tbh. Snapchat Stories used to | be nice but IG killed that and then Snapchat had to find | other niches | MagnumOpus wrote: | Use the F.B.Purity browser extension. | arkitaip wrote: | Tons of people use Whatsapp, Imo and other chat to keep in | touch with friends and families without the nonsense of social | media. | ffssffss wrote: | It's more about connections to acquaintances and mutual | friends... maybe you just had to be there in ~2009 but | there's really nothing like it today. For better or worse. | johannes1234321 wrote: | Yes, chronological timeline and push! And that only1 for | people in the group. | | 1) Yes, yes, Facebook/Meta hassome access and security issues | might exist etc., but way different from public-by-default | Facebook | wussboy wrote: | > people that you know in real life | | There's still, you know, real life. I recommend it. | bobbygoodlatte wrote: | Yep. A very sad truth. | | It would be quite a challenge to re-create what FB circa | 2006-2010 or so was like. Before influencers and engagement | farming. Before it became "social media" and was just a "social | utility" | | The problem is that even if you re-built that product, it would | quickly get overrun by engagement optimizers. If the product is | open, they'll rush in. | | Group chat apps somewhat fill this product void, but not | completely. There was something magical about a social network | being somewhat open & organic that group chats can't capture | frankthedog wrote: | The group chat is the new social network. Chronological, you | know who's in there, photo sharing, reactions, reply's. It has | everything me and my close friends need. | benjaminwootton wrote: | Love or hate Elon, he could definitely have an impact on the tech | industry. | | In a few months he could demonstrate that you don't need as many | employees as you thought, that you don't need the heavy handed | moderation/censorship, and that you could actually charge for | your services rather than being wholly dependent on advertising. | | All positive developments for the industry IMO. | DeepYogurt wrote: | That or he kills the company | grecy wrote: | Absolutely right, that is a possible outcome. | | Personally, I'd rather try something and have it not work out | and learn the lessons than sit around saying "what if" for | the rest of my life. | lukevp wrote: | With 40 billion dollars on the line? I think it'd make more | sense to think through things and evolve it over time | rather than shooting from the hip constantly. Morale at | Twitter must be even lower than Amazon at this point. | grecy wrote: | > _With 40 billion dollars on the line?_ | | Well sure. Musk risked a lot more than that and almost | lost Tesla on the Model3 ramp. He risked a lot more than | that on reusable rockets, he's risking a lot more than | that on Starlink & Starship. | | If you want to do something extremely impactful, you've | gotta take big risks. | | Playing the safe game is pretty mundane and boring, and | to be honest it's not a very exciting way to live, and | not a very fast way to improve something. | latchkey wrote: | > _Morale at Twitter must be even lower than Amazon at | this point._ | | Why would you say that though? The people who've hung on | this long probably want to be there. | | https://twitter.com/leahculver/status/1625961159894663169 | rvnx wrote: | Then it's very strange that they created the #oneteam | with blue hearts if they are so happy ? | tayo42 wrote: | There's probably some pyschopaths that enjoy the chaos | and power vacuums. | | There are a lot that don't want to be there. A lot | returned out of necessity. Mostly from h1b visa stuff and | avoiding being deported. Or getting a new job isn't as | easy right now as some think it is. Teams are tiny so | people are over worked and elon is making demands that | require people to over work and do things immediately. | maximus-decimus wrote: | The company was already bleeding money. He might fail to save | it, but can he really kill a company that was already dying? | mmiyer wrote: | Twitter had many profitable quarters before Musk bought it, | and lots of cash on hand with a lot of runway. It was not | dying in any meaningful sense. His changes have only | destroyed profitability by substantially reducing | advertising revenue. | beebmam wrote: | Yes, yes he can. | anonymousab wrote: | The company had some profitable years pre-covid, and Elon's | first action was to nearly double their debt _and_ slash | their income. | | He may have done far worse things as well but that depends | on your opinion of his product/feature changes. But the | additional debt he has saddled them with and the revenue he | deprived Twitter of aren't really arguable, and his | attempts to cut costs by short term slash and burns don't | make anywhere near the dent needed to offset them. | LightDub wrote: | Huh. New perspective. | | I don't like Musk but is this a mercy killing? | dehrmann wrote: | At worst, it was treading water. | mc32 wrote: | I think Elon started the 'disk defragmentation' process for | employee efficiency and other companies are seeing the benefit. | There is a lot of slack in tech companies. When staff have time | to unironically have video shorts on how pampered they are and | how little work they get to do, there is a lot of | 'defragmentation' opportunities. | | Companies were afraid to be first but Elon plus the new malaise | economy gives them the right condition to follow suit and start | it. | 6510 wrote: | The most unexpected angle to me was how people who just do | their job become the prime targets to get rid of. If you want | promotion or simply for people to stop laughing at you behind | your back you have to drop your productivity way way down to | average - ideally below. | hendersoon wrote: | Certainly all that /could/ happen, but given developments so | far it all seems just a bit far-fetched, doesn't it? | fma wrote: | FB was losing money due to Apple clamping down on privacy | policy. It should not surprise anyone that FB would look for | different revenue stream. IMHO FB had no choice, and I wouldn't | be surprised if their introduce other paid products. | | I wish FB would have a free verification service so everyone | can be verified...so when I look through comments I can filter | by such. | LightDub wrote: | [flagged] | trashtestcrash wrote: | I think it's way to early to state these conclusions. | penjelly wrote: | he's not the first to even do this... Snapchat added a premium | tier with actual (small) perks way ahead of others, and they | have 2.5M subs for it. telegram did it too. People only focus | on musk cause he's loud but he's following the trends of the | industry, he's not inventing the ideas from thin air. Remember | when he said he'd make twitter a "super app"? kinda like how | IG, wechat, Snapchat and others have been for a while. | soneca wrote: | Too early to tell any of those things. The layoffs on sales | might make the business worse in the mid term. The layoffs on | product and engineering might make the product worse, even | obsolete in the mid term. There is absolutely no way to tell if | light handed moderation will work. There is no way to know if | the service revenue makes any difference compared to ad | revenue. | | You are wishful thinking the best case scenario for Musk | decisions. It is just as likely, in my opinion, that in a year | or two the worst scenario will be the outcome of Musk tenure. | | The worst case scenario, in my view, is something like the | revenue never recovering to pre-acquisition levels (which | weren't great already), the product not having any | significantly valuable new feature, and suffering from long | outages and ended up being sold for ~$10bi. | blastonico wrote: | Overstaffing a company doesn't mean it makes great products | too, it tends to create more bureaucracy, deep hierarchy | structure, and pointless products (some companies putting | more effort on these products then focusing on their best | ones...). | | It's extremely difficult to find the right balance, almost | impossible when the company is sky rocketing, like Twitter | was. | | Trying to analyze it from a business man perspective, I see | that Elon's trying to find that balance and I see that as | positive. He can be wrong, things can go wrong, but sometimes | you must make this kind of decision, take the consequences, | and adjust to fix what you broke. | chasing wrote: | He may very well prove that you can make a social media service | more profitable by making it more harmful to users and damaging | to the community in general. | | I'm not sure selling sausages made out of sawdust is a big win | or even that interesting of a business solution. It's a short- | cut that most companies could take if they were to chuck their | ethics out of the window (and possibly be willing to break the | law). | | But if it makes money a large swath of the tech industry will | hail it as an innovation and follow suit. Which is kind of sad. | And also, at the end of the day, why we need laws against | selling sausages made out of sawdust. | [deleted] | tokinonagare wrote: | > He may very well prove that you can make a social media | service more profitable by making it more harmful to users | and damaging to the community in general. | | By removing the very politically-biased censorship he already | did a very healthy move for the whole world. | ElevenLathe wrote: | I'm sure dumping millions of users suddenly into the | equivalent of /b/ will be a politically neutral change. /s | | Unfortunately it isn't possible to have an unmoderated | forum. Choosing not to moderate is still a moderation | choice. | CharlesW wrote: | > _By removing the very politically-biased censorship..._ | | About that...123 | | 1 https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/25/23571103/elon-musk- | twitte... | | 2 https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/16/tech/musk-censors- | press/index... | | 3 https://theintercept.com/2022/11/22/elon-musk-twitter- | censor... | mc32 wrote: | He did but we see both the liberal and autocratic | governments of the world lament that they wish Elon would | be open to government censorship. Now, some people don't | want to have this be acknowledged but it's what we're | seeing. | drstewart wrote: | People are actually going to start arguing that Twitter and | other social media were healthy up until he bought Twitter | just to spite bad meme man, aren't they? | chasing wrote: | Just because something's a mess doesn't mean you can't make | it worse. | curiousgal wrote: | This is satire, right? | benjaminwootton wrote: | No. As I mentioned, leaving your feelings about him | personally aside, he is challenging the model for social | media and now having the approach cloned by the market | leader. | | I hated the moderations/censorship on these platforms and I | dislike the adtech/tracking business model so he has my | support on both of those angles. | | Meta also appear to be bundling in customer support which is | probably my third objection to big tech. So I'll thank Elon | for that one too. | anonymousab wrote: | What he has demonstrated so far is that you don't need | those things if your goal is to lose money, and you can | stay alive a little longer in those situations by simply | ignoring several laws wholesale. | | He still has yet to demonstrate any other outcomes than | making twitter vastly less profitable. | ripvanwinkle wrote: | The ad tracking is not going away with this new offer | thfuran wrote: | Yeah, there's too much money to be made. It's unlikely to | go away unless made entirely illegal. | smrtinsert wrote: | The model includes ignoring real estate contracts? He's | having an impact like someone dumping a trash bin on your | lawn has an impact | [deleted] | kristianc wrote: | Or ... none of those could end up being true. I remember a lot | of projection about how Elon was going to restore Twitter to | the 'early days', and none of that has come to pass either. | | I'd rather judge on things that have actually happened than | have to deal with a new set of forward looking projections | about what could happen every few months. | soneca wrote: | I remember having a bit of hope that an easy win could be he | making changes to regain trust from developers and make | Twitter a more dynamic platform with a more open API. Turns | out, he did exactly the opposite and led to even more | distrust from third party developers. | pessimizer wrote: | It adds nothing to reply to someone saying that the changes | at twitter could be good and influential by saying "but they | could also be bad." It's already implied in the _could._ | | > I'd rather judge on things that have actually happened than | have to deal with a new set of forward looking projections | about what could happen every few months. | | If you're leaving all prediction and forecasting to other | people, why complain when they do it? | kristianc wrote: | I'm not pointing out that they could be bad -- I'm pointing | out that there's a good track record of them not happening | at all, particularly when it comes to Musk. | shrimpx wrote: | I read that ~300k users have signed up for Twitter Blue, so | Twitter Blue has increased Twitter's revenue by 0.5%. | | He's definitely made a bunch of contrarian decisions but it's | too early to speculate that they could be 'impact'. | | Buying a company and immediately forcing it to operate on a | fraction of its prior resources is not new, btw. It's the | private equity formula. | Spastche wrote: | seems like needless rent-seeking for a dying company | meepmorp wrote: | the rent seeking is a way to keep the place going, ad revenue | is down and they're still shoveling money into the metaverse | hn_throwaway_99 wrote: | Honestly, all of this "pay for a verified badge" BS from Twitter, | now FB and others seems exactly equivalent to when companies | release software with vulnerabilities and then also charge you | for the antivirus software to protect against that (thankfully, | that seems to be less of an issue these days). | | Why don't these companies have a responsibility to prevent | fraudulent signups in the first place - especially Facebook which | has, from day #1, prevented non-real-person signups in their Ts- | and-Cs. | westoque wrote: | i actually support the pay to verify feature. my reasoning for | this is it gives authenticity to the user. if the user is | verified then i know that the user is most likely not a bot | account and gives some credibility. could this be free? | certainly, it's how the old twitter verified works but now | since all users can be verified, it democratizes this feature | and i think its better overall. i notced discussions with | similarly verified users are more civilized probably due to the | personal information being shared and makes them think twice | about doing anything malicious or otherwise. | basch wrote: | Or like Microsoft making conditional access a premium and not | base feature of identity. | | "We can see hackers are in your account, enter your credit card | and upgrade now so we can boot them for you." | dm8 wrote: | As someone who likes to pay for things I use, I'm in the target | customer/user group here. Couple of questions - | | 1. Is it only for FB or across all Meta services (FB, IG, | WhatsApp, Oculus etc.) 2. Are ads going to be shown to | verified/premium subscribers? | | 2nd point is particularly important. Especially if key value prop | is about security and privacy. Looks like ARPU for Meta is $40 | annually. So financially they can afford not to show ads to | verified subscribers (annual sub of $100+). However, for verified | subscribers it's only about "blue badge" I doubt there will be | huge uptick unless it has other "sweetners" like "no ads" like | youtube premium. | | Overall - this is a great move by Meta. As it gives them ability | to diversify revenue streams from ads where they are dependent on | 3rd party platform privacy policies. YouTube premium has shown | that social platforms can thrive with freemium model and they | have roughly 80M subs ($1B+ revenue). Meta is trying to replicate | same success with their brands. | zeroonetwothree wrote: | The type of person that can afford $144/year is going to have | much higher ARPU than the overall average. | codq wrote: | YouTube Premium has a clear value prop though w/no ads--I'm | still not sure what I'm getting for Meta Verified... a blue | check? Direct support if I (probably won't) need it? | | Twitter Blue now allows for longer tweets, and there is (or at | least was) cachet around having a checkmark, so there is some | cultural heritage there. | | Blue checks on Instagram have some clout, but I've never heard | of someone eager for verification on Facebook. Protecting | against impersonation is something these platforms should be | doing for free. | | If this removed ads across the platforms then _maybe_ there'd | be value in this, but I really just don't understand who this | is for or why anyone would pay $100+ /year. | redox99 wrote: | $12 is too high if it's not going to remove ads. | markx2 wrote: | "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." | HeckFeck wrote: | "Nothing sinister to see here, move along!" | | t. Nick Clegg | swarnie wrote: | Nice to see the Tea Boy still getting work. | jfk13 wrote: | $12 a _month_ , or nearly $150 a year?! Wow... how much | "customer support" do they expect the average person to need in | the course of a year? | spike021 wrote: | I've known people with several thousand followers whose | accounts get stolen ("hacked") and then they have no way to | get Instagram to restore their access, so they're forced to | make a new account. | | I guess it'd be helpful for people like them to have | dedicated support lines. | bink wrote: | Wouldn't it be easier and cheaper just to enable MFA? | jefftk wrote: | People who pay for customer support probably expect to | consume more than average. | codq wrote: | I'd call them every day just to chat. | mattm wrote: | This would be worth paying for one month just to get access | to customer support if I needed it. | RobotToaster wrote: | What makes this more ridiculous is that some of us have already | been forced to verify with a government ID years ago, and they | did that for free. | | (I think it's if you run a page with over a certain number of | followers or something) | mrtqaf wrote: | Hilarious. You pay for the fact that they can track you better, | build real life dossiers and charge advertisers more. | | Sometime ago it was "if it's free, you are the product". Let's | change that to "you are always the product". | baby wrote: | People who say that usually don't find facebook useful. | Imagine saying that about google maps, gmail, spreadsheet, | google docs, google meet, etc. | yazzku wrote: | People who say that don't want their identities | prostituted. Whether or how useful it is is irrelevant. I | don't want to have my identity prostituted based on the | degree of how much I get in return. | yazzku wrote: | Now the product literally pays for itself. It's like the wall | in Mexico, Silicon Valley style. | winternett wrote: | Seems to be a lazy clone of Musk policy from Twitter... Isn't | it crazy that now private companies (not even in conjunction | with governments that issue IDs) are selling online legitimacy? | | These moves are driven by ignorant (outright) class-ism, and | social media is quickly becoming a system of fraud that | supports the wealthy while disabling people who don't pay. It's | going to corrupt every aspect of life from news to | entertainment if it hasn't already.... Trending topics used to | be somewhat accurate because they were based on everyone's | posts rather than just the posts of people who could afford to | pay for verification. Because platforms got greedy and couldn't | make platforms work with corporate sponsoring advertiser | funding alone, they turn on users, the very people already | working for free... This is not sustainable business. These | platforms create schemes like crypto and NFT scams, info | harvesting, unfair moderation, user account lockout extortion | schemes, fake followers, payola promotion, ban extortion, | industry plants, and many other criminal things to extort their | user base. It's the modern day large-scale criminal enterprise | to run a social media site.... The reason it's not obvious is | because no one sees the code at work, they just see the end | result of content creators. | | This is really short-sighted (stupid actually) tech leadership | based on profit desperation. I hope people begin to defund | these large social media entities, as they are no good for | anyone's progress, except for the company CEOs and Investors | perhaps... Ugh. | dopa42365 wrote: | If for whatever reason you absolutely NEED a different account | than everyone else (very special VIP person), you might as well | pay for it. | epaulson wrote: | Every time I see these pay-for-verification schemes I can't help | but think of Dr. Seuss and the Star-Bellied Sneetches: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VohyMXB4FLo | | I must not be the target audience for this because I can't see | how paying nearly as much as Amazon Prime is worth it so I can | get comment priority and a little star next to my FB account, | which is friends-only anyway. If they threw something useful in, | like a music or video streaming service with a decent catalog or | airline miles or a discount at Target, then maybe. | jvm___ wrote: | I think it's a response to the incoming AI revolution. | | Just because someone writes in your name and your style online | won't mean it's you when ChatGPT or the next version can clone | your writing style in seconds. | | Being verified online is going to be more important for | businesses and people as the internet degrades into the quality | level of recipe sites. | jjfoooo4 wrote: | Sounds like Facebook's problem, not mine. | rvz wrote: | > Being verified online is going to be more important for | businesses and people as the internet degrades into the | quality level of recipe sites. | | Now someone is thinking and making sense. But I don't think | this current AI cycle is anything of a 'revolution'. It is | more like a pure hype and mania driven reaction over a | hallucinating AI generating sophistry. | | There is no breakthrough in this other than 'train it on more | data and watch it go off the rails' like what we have seen | with Bing AI. This is just Tay 2.0. | anony23 wrote: | I wouldn't even create a Meta account if they paid ME 11.99/month | TheAceOfHearts wrote: | The key feature seems to be access to customer support. If you | have a large audience or following on Facebook and it's relevant | to your business then I could probably see it being worthwhile. | For regular users the value proposition seems questionable? | | I'd probably be more fine with a one-time fixed-cost verification | service, considering it probably requires a human to manually | verify and approve each request. But a monthly subscription? That | feels like a rent-seeking cash grab. Do you suddenly forget about | someone's verification status as soon as they stop paying? | | If anyone reading this comment is considering paying for this | service I'd love to hear what makes this service worthwhile for | you. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-02-19 23:01 UTC)