Apps

Meta Verified won’t let you change name, username or profile photo for now

Comment

Meta negotiations with moderators in Kenya over labor dispute collapse
Image Credits: TechCrunch

After looking at Twitter’s struggle with impersonation problems when Elon Musk relaunched Twitter Blue, Mark Zuckerberg is putting up guardrails before launching Meta Verified.

Earlier this week, the company announced its subscription plan, which is set to be available for users in New Zealand and Australia in the next few days. If you pay for Meta Verified, you won’t be able to change your profile name, username, date of birth or photo. The company will block any such efforts. If you need to change any of the above you will need to unsubscribe and apply again.

“At this time, Meta Verified will only support your real name on your profile. Once your profile is verified, you can’t change the profile name, username, date of birth, or photo on your profile without going through the Meta Verified subscription and verifications application process again,” the company said in a blog post.

A Meta spokesperson told TechCrunch that the tech giant is working on a “fast follow feature” that will let users change any of the above through a verification process without needing to cancel the subscription.

What’s more, to subscribe to Meta Verified a user needs to be at least 18 years old, have two-factor authentication turned on and submit a government ID that matches their photo on Facebook or Instagram. In addition to that, the user will need to have minimum activity requirements such as posting in the recent past. The company said it will publish detailed requirements when the paid plan becomes available this week.

Meta also shared some details on its plan for the verification badge. It said that at the moment, “the blue badge will look the same as we evolve the meaning of the badge to focus on authenticity.” The company said it will display the follower count of legacy verified accounts in more places to differentiate them from Meta Verified accounts.

For example, if two accounts have the same name, you will see the follower count of the legacy verified account in the search. It’s not clear how easy it is to spot for an average user who might be skimming through screens quickly. Users might also not see a follower count while going through posts. It could lead to some confusion between a Meta Verified account and a popular account. We have already seen that on Twitter, despite the social network putting in boundaries to avoid impersonation, bad-faith actors have found loopholes in the system.

Late Thursday, Instagram updated its support page for verified badges with a new description that says that the badge could be used to find real accounts of people. The earlier description mentioned that the badge was the mark of “real accounts of public figures”.

“The verified badge is a tool to help people find the real accounts of people and brands. If an account has the verified badge, we’ve confirmed that it represents who it says it does. A verified badge is not a symbol to show importance, authority, or subject matter expertise,” the new description says.

Meta Verified’s prime offering is an increase in reach for paid users. Combined with verification, it could cause a lot of chaos, including amplifying hate speech or misinformation. So it’s going to be important to track how users react to the new subscription product in New Zealand and Australia.

In a statement, Meta said that to stop misinformation all posts from paid users will have to adhere to its content guidelines. Plus, the company will take quick action against harmful posts.

“All Meta Verified subscribers and their content must adhere to all of our policies, including the Facebook Community Standards, Facebook Terms of Use, Instagram Community Guidelines, Instagram Terms of Use, and Meta Advertising Standards. If a violation occurs, we will take swift action against the harmful behavior. We also continue to have policies that prohibit certain types of misinformation that may be harmful, and work to slow the spread of hoaxes and viral misinformation,” a Meta spokesperson said.

24/02/2022 4 PM IST: The story was updated to include a new description of the verification badge from Instagram.

More TechCrunch

A new crop of early-stage startups — along with some recent VC investments — illustrates a niche emerging in the autonomous vehicle technology sector. Unlike the companies bringing robotaxis to…

VCs and the military are fueling self-driving startups that don’t need roads

When the founders of Sagetap, Sahil Khanna and Kevin Hughes, started working at early-stage enterprise software startups, they were surprised to find that the companies they worked at were trying…

Deal Dive: Sagetap looks to bring enterprise software sales into the 21st century

Keeping up with an industry as fast-moving as AI is a tall order. So until an AI can do it for you, here’s a handy roundup of recent stories in the world…

This Week in AI: OpenAI moves away from safety

After Apple loosened its App Store guidelines to permit game emulators, the retro game emulator Delta — an app 10 years in the making — hit the top of the…

Adobe comes after indie game emulator Delta for copying its logo

Meta is once again taking on its competitors by developing a feature that borrows concepts from others — in this case, BeReal and Snapchat. The company is developing a feature…

Meta’s latest experiment borrows from BeReal’s and Snapchat’s core ideas

Welcome to Startups Weekly! We’ve been drowning in AI news this week, with Google’s I/O setting the pace. And Elon Musk rages against the machine.

Startups Weekly: It’s the dawning of the age of AI — plus,  Musk is raging against the machine

IndieBio’s Bay Area incubator is about to debut its 15th cohort of biotech startups. We took special note of a few, which were making some major, bordering on ludicrous, claims…

IndieBio’s SF incubator lineup is making some wild biotech promises

YouTube TV has announced that its multiview feature for watching four streams at once is now available on Android phones and tablets. The Android launch comes two months after YouTube…

YouTube TV’s ‘multiview’ feature is now available on Android phones and tablets

Featured Article

Two Santa Cruz students uncover security bug that could let millions do their laundry for free

CSC ServiceWorks provides laundry machines to thousands of residential homes and universities, but the company ignored requests to fix a security bug.

1 day ago
Two Santa Cruz students uncover security bug that could let millions do their laundry for free

OpenAI’s Superalignment team, responsible for developing ways to govern and steer “superintelligent” AI systems, was promised 20% of the company’s compute resources, according to a person from that team. But…

OpenAI created a team to control ‘superintelligent’ AI — then let it wither, source says

TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 is just around the corner, and the buzz is palpable. But what if we told you there’s a chance for you to not just attend, but also…

Harness the TechCrunch Effect: Host a Side Event at Disrupt 2024

Decks are all about telling a compelling story and Goodcarbon does a good job on that front. But there’s important information missing too.

Pitch Deck Teardown: Goodcarbon’s $5.5M seed deck

Slack is making it difficult for its customers if they want the company to stop using its data for model training.

Slack under attack over sneaky AI training policy

A Texas-based company that provides health insurance and benefit plans disclosed a data breach affecting almost 2.5 million people, some of whom had their Social Security number stolen. WebTPA said…

Healthcare company WebTPA discloses breach affecting 2.5 million people

Featured Article

Microsoft dodges UK antitrust scrutiny over its Mistral AI stake

Microsoft won’t be facing antitrust scrutiny in the U.K. over its recent investment into French AI startup Mistral AI.

1 day ago
Microsoft dodges UK antitrust scrutiny over its Mistral AI stake

Ember has partnered with HSBC in the U.K. so that the bank’s business customers can access Ember’s services from their online accounts.

Embedded finance is still trendy as accounting automation startup Ember partners with HSBC UK

Kudos uses AI to figure out consumer spending habits so it can then provide more personalized financial advice, like maximizing rewards and utilizing credit effectively.

Kudos lands $10M for an AI smart wallet that picks the best credit card for purchases

The EU’s warning comes after Microsoft failed to respond to a legally binding request for information that focused on its generative AI tools.

EU warns Microsoft it could be fined billions over missing GenAI risk info

The prospects for troubled banking-as-a-service startup Synapse have gone from bad to worse this week after a United States Trustee filed an emergency motion on Wednesday.  The trustee is asking…

A US Trustee wants troubled fintech Synapse to be liquidated via Chapter 7 bankruptcy, cites ‘gross mismanagement’

U.K.-based Seraphim Space is spinning up its 13th accelerator program, with nine participating companies working on a range of tech from propulsion to in-space manufacturing and space situational awareness. The…

Seraphim’s latest space accelerator welcomes nine companies

OpenAI has reached a deal with Reddit to use the social news site’s data for training AI models. In a blog post on OpenAI’s press relations site, the company said…

OpenAI inks deal to train AI on Reddit data

X users will now be able to discover posts from new Communities that are trending directly from an Explore tab within the section.

X pushes more users to Communities

For Mark Zuckerberg’s 40th birthday, his wife got him a photoshoot. Zuckerberg gives the camera a sly smile as he sits amid a carefully crafted re-creation of his childhood bedroom.…

Mark Zuckerberg’s makeover: Midlife crisis or carefully crafted rebrand?

Strava announced a slew of features, including AI to weed out leaderboard cheats, a new ‘family’ subscription plan, dark mode and more.

Strava taps AI to weed out leaderboard cheats, unveils ‘family’ plan, dark mode and more

We all fall down sometimes. Astronauts are no exception. You need to be in peak physical condition for space travel, but bulky space suits and lower gravity levels can be…

Astronauts fall over. Robotic limbs can help them back up.

Microsoft will launch its custom Cobalt 100 chips to customers as a public preview at its Build conference next week, TechCrunch has learned. In an analyst briefing ahead of Build,…

Microsoft’s custom Cobalt chips will come to Azure next week

What a wild week for transportation news! It was a smorgasbord of news that seemed to touch every sector and theme in transportation.

Tesla keeps cutting jobs and the feds probe Waymo

Sony Music Group has sent letters to more than 700 tech companies and music streaming services to warn them not to use its music to train AI without explicit permission.…

Sony Music warns tech companies over ‘unauthorized’ use of its content to train AI

Winston Chi, Butter’s founder and CEO, told TechCrunch that “most parties, including our investors and us, are making money” from the exit.

GrubMarket buys Butter to give its food distribution tech an AI boost

The investor lawsuit is related to Bolt securing a $30 million personal loan to Ryan Breslow, which was later defaulted on.

Bolt founder Ryan Breslow wants to settle an investor lawsuit by returning $37 million worth of shares