Meta has promised better security and support with its monthly subscription service, Meta Verified, but only for personal accounts.
Clinical counsellor Amber Rules hadn’t changed a thing when she was suddenly shut out of her organisation’s Instagram account.
“I don’t know what went wrong, I didn’t know why I got locked out or what the solution was,” Rules said.
Before her out-of-the-blue booting from the social media app, Rules had shared mental health resources and opportunities for volunteers at her social enterprise and low-cost counselling service, Rough Patch.
“It took a week or so to realise what this meant for us,” Rules told AAP.
“I don’t think I understood just how much time it would take up.”
Rules and her colleagues scoured online forums, Facebook groups and contact lists to find anyone who could help.
Two months of searching finally yielded a contact: an email address from a friend of a Rough Patch volunteer.
“One day when I went to log in, it was just fixed.” Rules said.
“I assume it was just because we had a connect. I’m none the wiser, I don’t know how I can prevent it from happening again.”
Meta, Instagram’s parent company, this week launched a subscription service in Australia and New Zealand called Meta Verified which promises better access to customer service among other perks.
Users pay a monthly fee of $19.99 and submit ID to access the service, receiving a blue verification tick in return.
Meta says users will have access to “a real person” for account concerns and “proactive account monitoring” to tackle fake accounts.
However, a spokesman for Meta confirmed the service was for personal accounts only.
“Businesses are not eligible for Meta Verified at this time, but we’re excited to explore what a valuable subscription product for businesses could look like in the future,” the spokesman said.
“Subscription-based models have seen success across the industry and we think we can bring real value with the offering we’ve put together.” But social media strategist Meg Coffey described the move towards a pay-for-service model from Meta as a simple money grab.
“We should not have to pay for security—security should be something the apps offer as a bare minimum.”
Enhanced security and support features offered exclusively through Meta Verified are not available to business accounts, presenting a significant barrier to individuals who want to commercialise their profiles.
“You’re limited by the nature of the platform,” Coffey said.
“If you want to monetise anything, you can’t be a personal account.
“If paying twenty bucks means that when I get logged out I get instant help, that’s brilliant. But it needs to be rolled out to businesses, not just people.”
Belinda Barnet, a senior lecturer in digital media at Swinburne University, said the “fire sales” of security features on social media was a worrying sign.
“They’re starting to sell the locks on the doors...the verification in particular represents a security risk,” Barnet said.
“If you can afford it, fantastic. But there will be a whole group of people who can’t. It’s really not fair, it’s extortion by the company.”
At Rough Patch, where reaching people online is essential, the overwhelming need for support trumps the issue of fairness.
“It’s wildly unfair for an organisation as big as Instagram to make money from millions of small businesses and expect us to pay for tech support, it’s a very cynical business model,” Rules said.
“But when push comes to shove, would I pay $20 to have that problem fixed? I absolutely would.”
