A new report states that Meta is working on a paid verification system similar to Twitterโ€™s Blue โ€“ for its Instagram and Facebook apps.

References to this are spotted in the appโ€™s code, as unearthed by a reverse engineer. Details on how much this verification system would be and what all features are available in this plan are still unknown.

Facebook and Instagram are two of the highly used social media platforms today โ€“ with both raking more than billions of active users monthly. With this popularity, any chance to get more reach or a blue verified badge on the platform is often taken, but the Meta platforms restrict them only to certain accounts.

You must either be a celebrity or a government official to get a free verified badge โ€“ marking your authenticity on the platform. But soon, regular users may also be able to obtain a verified badge โ€“ by paying Meta!

Hints of such subscription are revealed by Alessandro Paluzzi, a reverse engineer who spotted the below code lines in the Instagram app. โ€œIG_NME_PAID_BLUE_BADGE_IDVโ€ and โ€œFB_NME_PAID_BLUE_BADGE_IDV.โ€

While FB and IG are the short forms of Facebook and Instagram, IDV stands for โ€˜Identity Verificationโ€˜ in most online spaces. And with a clear statement as โ€œpaid blue badgeโ€ beside them, thereโ€™s no wonder a plan of such is in the works.

While itโ€™s good to authenticate its platform users and give them a special feel, hope Instagram wouldnโ€™t make the mistake of Twitter from its Blue subscription. After Elon Muskโ€™s takeover, Twitter revamped Blueโ€™s subscription, creating enough havoc to pause the new project, create new rules, and relaunch the platform.

And with Instagram and Facebook having black markets for obtaining verification badges, Meta should carefully implement its new plans to avoid breaking the platform experience for its community. A spokesperson responding to Paluzziโ€™s findings said they donโ€™t want to comment on it, so the authenticity of this move is yet to be known.

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