The paid blue ticks of Facebook and Instagram also arrive in the United Kingdom

The paid blue ticks of Facebook and Instagram also arrive in the United Kingdom.

Meta has just expanded the availability of its Paid Verification system to the UK. Meta’s new program grants you a badge, the so-called blue verification check, on Facebook and Instagram to indicate that you really are who you say you are. In short, it is a system very similar to that of Twitter.

While you can care less about the blue check, the service actually offers a few other extremely important services for businesses and content creators as well. By subscribing, in fact, you are also entitled to a system of “proactive protection against attempted identity theft”, as well as direct access to a priority customer assistance channel. In practice, if he runs a small e-commerce on Instagram and someone steals your account, you will be able to talk to a real Meta employee (instead of remaining at the mercy of the eternal times of traditional assistance).

In the US, the service costs between $12 and $15 a month, depending on how you sign up. For UK residents, it costs £10 a month if you register on the web and £12 a month if you register on an iOS or Android device. The price difference is to offset the fees of Apple and Google stores and is another reference to Twitter.

Unlike Twitter, you need to provide official ID to join this service . You must also be of legal age and have two-factor authentication turned on. Also, verified users cannot change their profile name, photo, username, or date of birth — you’ll need to go through the entire verification process again to do so.

This feature is still under testing. The beta version of this program starts rolling out to users in the UK today, but will be released gradually, so it may take a few weeks before it reaches your account. So far, Meta has tested its verification system in the US, Australia, New Zealand and, now, the UK.