Meta announced they are testing Meta Verified, a new subscription bundle that includes account verification with impersonation protections and access to increased visibility and support. Personally, I think this decision was influenced by Twittter’s Twitter Blue subscription service.

The subscription is available for direct purchase on Instagram or Facebook in Australia and New Zealand starting later this week. People can purchase a monthly subscription (USD) $11.99 on the web and (USD) $14.99 on iOS and Android.

With Meta Verified, you’ll get:

• A verified badge, confirming you’re the real you and that your account has been authenticated by a government ID.
• More protection from impersonation with proactive account monitoring for impersonators who might target people with growing online audiences.
• Help when you need it with access to a real person for common account issues.
• Increased visibility and reach with prominence in some areas of the platform – like search, comments and recommendations.
• Exclusive features to express yourself in unique ways.

Meta stated: Its important to feel confident that your identity and accounts are safe and that the people you’re interacting with are who they say they are. That’s why we’re building a series of checks into Meta Verified before, during, and after someone applies.

• To be eligible, accounts must meet minimum activity requirements, such as prior posting history and be at least 18 years old.
• Applicants are then required to submit a government ID that matches the profile name and photo of the Facebook or Instagram account they’re applying for.
• Subscriptions will include proactive monitoring for account impersonation.

TechCrunch reported that Facebook-parent Meta has launched a subscription service called Meta Verified that will allow users to add the coveted blue check mark to their Instagram and Facebook accounts for up to a $15 a month by verifying their identity, its chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said on Sunday, tapping a revenue channel that has returned mixed success for its smaller rival Twitter.

According to TechCrunch, the revenues of Meta, which has opted not to charge its customers for most of its services in more than a decade and a half since its founding, have taken a hit in recent years following Apple’s decision to introduce stringent privacy change on iOS that curtails the social firm’s ability to track users’ internet activities.

The Zuckerberg-led firm, which makes nearly all of its money from advertising, said last year that Apple’s move would cost the company more than $10 billion in lost ads revenue in 2022.

TechCrunch also reported that Meta’s announcement follows Snap launching its own subscription service last year, through which it has converted over a million users into paid customers already.

I have an Instagram account, but I don’t use Facebook. The idea of giving Meta access to a government ID that matches the profile name on my Instagram is alarming. I don’t feel that giving that type of information to Meta is safe, especially since the company has a history of tracking people.

Meta Platforms Inc. has long given unfair deference to VIP users of its Facebook and Instagram services under a program called “cross check” and has misled the public about the program, the company’s oversight board concluded in a report issued Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal reported.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the report offers the most detailed review of cross check, which Meta has billed as a quality-control effort to prevent moderation errors on content of heightened public interest. The oversight board took up the issue more than a year ago in the wake of a Wall Street Journal article based on the internal documents that showed that cross check was plagued by favoritism, mismanagement and understaffing.

Meta’s Oversight Board posted information titled: “Oversight Board publishes policy advisory opinion on Meta’s cross-check program”. From the information:

Key Findings: The Board recognizes that the volume and complexity of content posted on Facebook and Instagram pose challenges for building systems that uphold Meta’s human rights commitments. However, in its current form, cross-check is flawed in key areas which the company must address:

Unequal treatment of users. Cross-check grants certain users greater protection than others. If a post from a user on Meta’s cross-check lists is identified as violating the company’s rules, it remains on the platform pending further review. Meta then applies its full range of policies, including exceptions and context-specific provisions, to the post, likely increasing its chances of remaining on the platform.

Ordinary users, by contrast, are much less likely to have their content reach reviewers who can apply the full range of Meta’s rules. This unequal treatment is particularly concerning given the lack of transparent criteria for Meta’s cross-check lists. While there are clear criteria for including business partners and government leaders, users whose content is likely to be important from a human rights perspective, such as journalists and civil society organizations, have less clear paths to access the program.

Lack of transparency around how cross-check works. The Board is also concerned about the limited information Meta has provided to the public and its users about cross-check. Currently, Meta does not inform users that they are on cross check lists and does not publicly share its procedures for creating and auditing these lists. It is unclear, for example, whether entities that continuously post violating content are kept on cross-check lists based on their profile. This lack of transparency impedes the Board and the public from understanding the full consequences of the program.

NPR reported that the board said Meta appeared to be more concerned with avoiding “provoking” VIPs and evading accusations of censorship than balancing tricky questions of free speech and safety. It called for the overhaul of the “flawed” program in a report on Tuesday that included wide-ranging recommendations to bring the program in line with international principles and Meta’s own stated values.

Personally, I don’t think it is fair for Meta to pick and choose which users are exempt from Meta’s rules about what people can, and can not, post. Hopefully, the Oversight Board’s review will require Meta to treat all users equally.

Earlier this year, Meta Platforms quietly convened a war room of staffers to address a critical problem: virtually all of Facebook’s top-ranked content was spammy, over sexualized, or generally what the company classified as regrettable, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Meta’s executives and researchers were growing embarrassed that its widely viewed content report, a quarterly survey of the posts with the broadest reach, was consistently dominated by stolen memes, engagement bait and link spam for sketchy online shops, according to documents viewed by The Wall Street Journal and people familiar with the issue.

Meta posted “Integrity and Transparency Reports, Third Quarter 2022”. It was written by Guy Rosen, VP of Integrity. Part of the report included Community Standards Enforcement Report Highlights.

It includes the following:

“Our actions against hate speech-related content decreased from 13.5 million to 10.6 million in Q3 2022 on Facebook because we improved the accuracy of our AI technology. We’ve done this by leveraging data from past user appeals to identify posts that could have been removed by mistake without appropriate cultural context.

“For example, now we can better recognize humorous terms of endearment used between friends, or better detect words that may be considered offensive or inappropriate in one context but not another. As we improve this accuracy, or proactive detection rate for hate speech also decreased from 95.6% to 90.2% in Q3 2022.”

Part of the report states that Meta’s actions against content that incites violence decreased from 19.3 million to 14.4 million in Q3 2022 after their improved AI technology was “better able to recognize language and emojis used in jest between friends.”

For bullying and harassment-related content, Meta’s proactive rate decreased in Q3 2022 from 76.7% to 67.8% on Facebook, and 87.4% to 87.3% on Instagram. Meta stated that this decrease was due to improved accuracy in their technologies (and a bug in their system that is now resolved).

On Facebook, Meta Took Action On:

1.67 million pieces of content related to terrorism, an increase from 13.5 million in Q2. This increase was because non-violating videos were added incorrectly to our media-matching technology banks and were removed (though they were eventually restored).

4.1 million pieces of drug content, an increase from 3.9 million in Q2 2022, due to improvements made to our proactive detection technology.

1.4 billion pieces of spam content, an increase from 734 million in Q2, due to an increased number of adversarial spam incidents in August.

On Instagram, Meta Took Action On:

2.2 million pieces of content related to terrorism, from 1.9 million on Q2, due to non-violating videos added incorrectly to our media-matching technology banks and were removed (though they were eventually restored).

2.5 pieces of drug content, an increase from 1.9 million, due to improvements in our proactive detection technology.

AdWeek reported that Meta removed three networks during the third quarter of this year for violations of Meta’s policies against inauthentic behavior.

According to AdWeek, the first originated in the U.S. and was linked to individuals associated with the U.S. military, and it operated across many internet services and focused on Afghanistan, Algeria, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Somalia, Syria, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Yemen.

The second one originated in China and targeted the Czech Republic, the U.S., and, to a lesser extent, Chinese- and French-speaking audiences around the world. The third originated in Russia, primarily targeting Germany but also France, Italy, Ukraine and the U.K.

It appears that Meta has put some effort into cleaning up its platforms. I suppose that’s what happens when Meta’s own researchers were “embarrassed” by what was appearing on Facebook and Instagram!