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For regulars on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram or Twitter, the blue checkmark is a familiar icon that confirms the user displaying it is verified in some way.
But some current and coming changes to the way those badges are awarded could affect how businesses and consumers interact online, social media observers say.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, recently announced it’s offering verification to users who pay for the privilege. The trial markets for Meta Verified recently expanded from Australia and New Zealand and now include the United States.
The company has not indicated when Meta Verified is coming to Canada.
In recent years on social media, verification has meant your identity has been confirmed in some way — by an employer, a governmental authority or, most often, by the social platform itself.
There’s been a shift in the verification process, to a model of paying for the badge, most notably by Twitter under the ownership of billionaire Elon Musk.
On first rollout, Musk publicly dismissed concerns that impostors would impersonate verified people or organizations by fooling readers with a paid blue checkmark. However, some companies had to deal with the fallout from impersonation or fake accounts that paid for verification.
For example, Eli Lilly’s stock plunged after false promises to offer medication for free were posted in a tweet that had a verified, blue checkmark next to the account — but that tweet was not actually from the company.
Beginning early this month, Twitter users could no longer distinguish between accounts that have been verified because they were publicly important or notable in some way, versus accounts that paid to be labelled as genuine or verified.
Profiles on Twitter’s website deliberately combine the two categories.
With Meta also moving toward paid blue checkmarks, social media educator Darian Kovacs believes it’s an effort to get new revenue, while giving Instagram and Facebook users better access to customer service and address complaints the company’s systems are slow to respond to impersonation and other problems.
“Meta has never had great customer service. And because of that, they are hoping people will pay to verify themselves,” he said, calling the charge for online identity verification an “Elon Musk approach” to platforms.
“[Musk] bought his way into the social media world and now he’s thinking, well, other people should be able to buy their way into coolness and verification in the same way he could buy his way into coolness and verification,” said Kovacs.
Kovacs noted there have been problems with offering verification without a charge.
According to Kovacs, legitimate groups or persons couldn’t get verification at all or experienced lengthy wait times for the type of blue checkmark they wanted.
“Both models aren’t perfect. But the pay to play model, I think it takes away from this whole idea that the internet is for all, social media is for all, and we are all on an equal level playing field, because all of a sudden now there’s another level. There’s a pay to play model,” said Kovacs, also a founding partner of Vancouver-based agency Jelly Digital Marketing.
According to Meta, charging for verification is part of the investment the company is making to increase support for users.
The company said validated subscribers to Meta Verified will receive a badge confirming they have been authenticated through government identification, and will get assistance from real people rather than automated or digital systems.
Meta said Facebook and Instagram users will continue to be able to report problems, including if they are being impersonated, but subscribers will have proactive and real-time monitoring for this type of problem.
Blake Spence of Calgary is among those who’ve had problems with Meta support.
Spence said his accounts have been regularly impersonated by an unknown fraudster.
After running a contest on his Instagram account, which he uses to promote LBGTQ+ events at businesses across Calgary, Spence noticed multiple accounts popping up and attempting to impersonate him in messages to other Instagram users.
“A lot of followers thought they won the contest and they were asked to fill out a form which included their name, their address, personal information, including their credit card numbers.”
Spence pointed out he was not, and would never, be asking for that information simply to promote events or contests.
He said hundreds of people messaged him asking for their prizes. He notified Instagram through their reporting channels, and said other friends and followers did the same.
“They didn’t do anything about it. It was reported numerous times and no action was taken.”
While Spence said he is likely to pay for the verification service once it is available in Canada, he’s not happy about it.
“It’s unfortunate. I don’t think we should have to pay for it.”
As revenue has dropped at companies such as Twitter and Meta, the motivation for pay to play has been clear for some observers.
Meta, in particular, has reported a drop in profits and several consecutive periods of declining revenue. A new product, such as verification, could bring in more money.
However, social network researcher Siva Vaidhyanathan isn’t entirely clear on Meta’s plans.
While the company’s revenues have been flattening, charging for verification may be more about reinforcing subscribers as a higher tier of customer for future Meta products, Vaidhyanathan, director of the Center for Media and Citizenship at the University of Virginia, told CBC News
“The only thing I can suspect, and I’m only guessing here, is that the people who run matter would like to start rolling out a series of financial relationships with their prime users … if you register your financial information with some new level of verification, then you’ve established yourself as essentially a financial partner or a prime member of the Facebook community.”
Whether someone reading posts on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter can trust that someone with a blue checkmark is who they say they are will depend on the platform’s management itself, according to Vaidhyanathan.
“If anyone is going to make paid verification actually work with some sort of trustworthiness, Meta is likely to be able to do it, especially through Instagram. Twitter will never be able to do it.”
It does create this two-tier system, which is not really in the spirit of either Facebook or Instagram.– Siva Vaidhyanathan, University of Virginia
Vaidhyanathan said Meta is run by “professionals,” in contrast to Twitter, which has let go of many employees who vetted users for verification.
But if paid checkmarks are offered for a low monthly price, without a team to engage in actual detailed verification, the researcher suspects both the social network and the public will be impacted negatively.
“It’s going to hurt people’s reputations. People are going to be accused of saying and tweeting things they never said. It’s going to be chaos,” said Vaidhyanathan.
Paid verification has a prime market — social media businesses, politicians and influencers.
“To have that extra fraud protection makes doing business, promoting yourself, being an influencer that much easier,” said Vaidhyanathan, citing the example of a golden retriever popular on Instagram.
“She doesn’t sell anything. She doesn’t care to make any money. Nonetheless, every day her, mentions are filled with fake accounts. And this has been a phenomenon that has grown in the last year. So it’s clearly a problem that they’re not addressing [for unpaid accounts].”
Jelly Marketing’s Kovacs said it’s unclear how far Meta will push these subscriptions.
“They haven’t made it a major piece of their promotion and marketing at the moment.”
But one thing is clear — if paid verification becomes a permanent part of the social networking ecosystem, paying to play will be yet another substantial change.
“It does create this two-tier system, which is not really in the spirit of either Facebook or Instagram, but spirits are long gone in that world,” said Vaidhyanathan.
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Donald Trump is set to secure on Tuesday a stock bonus worth US$1.3-billion from the company that operates his social media app Truth Social (DJT-Q), equivalent to about half the majority stake he already owns in it, thanks to the wild rally in its shares.
The award will take the former U.S. president’s overall stake in the company, Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), to US$4.1-billion.
While Mr. Trump has agreed not to sell any of his TMTG shares before September, the windfall represents a significant boost to his wealth, which Forbes pegs at US$4.7-billion.
Unlike much of his real estate empire, shares are easy to divest in the stock market and could come in handy as Mr. Trump’s legal fees and fines pile up, including a US$454.2-million judgment in his New York civil fraud case he is appealing.
The bonus also reflects the exuberant trading in TMTG’s shares, which have been on a roller coaster ride since the company listed on Nasdaq last month through a merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) and was snapped up by Trump supporters and speculators.
Mr. Trump will be entitled to the stock bonus under the terms of the SPAC deal once TMTG’s shares stay above US$17.50 for 20 trading days after the company’s March 26 listing. They ended trading on Monday at US$35.50, and they would have to lose more than half their value on Tuesday for Mr. Trump to miss out.
TMTG’s current valuation of approximately US$5-billion is equivalent to about 1,220 times the loss-making company’s revenue in 2023 of US$4.1-million.
No other U.S. company of similar market capitalization has such a high valuation multiple, LSEG data shows. This is despite TMTG warning investors in regulatory filings that its operational losses raise “substantial doubt” about its ability to remain in business.
A TMTG spokesperson declined to comment on the stock award to Mr. Trump. “With more than $200 million in the bank and zero debt, Trump Media is fulfilling all its obligations related to the merger and rapidly moving forward with its business plan,” the spokesperson said.
While Mr. Trump’s windfall is rich for a small, loss-making company like TMTG, the earnout structure that allows it is common. According to a report from law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, stock earnouts for management were seen in more than half the SPAC mergers completed in 2022.
However, few executives clinch these earnout bonuses because many SPAC deals end up performing poorly in the stock market, said Freshfields securities lawyer Michael Levitt. TMTG’s case is rare because its shares are trading decoupled from its business prospects.
“Many earnouts in SPACs are never satisfied because many SPAC prices fall significantly after the merger is completed,” Mr. Levitt said.
To be sure, TMTG made it easier for Mr. Trump to meet the earnout threshold. When TMTG agreed to merge with the SPAC in October, 2021, the deal envisioned that TMTG shares had to trade above US$30 for Mr. Trump to get the full earnout bonus. The two sides amended the deal in August, 2023 to lower that threshold to US$17.50, regulatory filings show.
Had that not happened, Mr. Trump would not have yet earned the full bonus because TMTG’s shares traded below US$30 last week. The terms of the deal, however, give Mr. Trump three years from the listing to win the full earnout, so he could have still earned it if the shares traded above the threshold for 20 days in any 30-day period during this time.
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The B.C. government is putting its proposed online harms legislation on hold after reaching an agreement with some of the largest social media platforms to make people safer online.
Premier David Eby says in a joint statement with representatives of the firms Meta, TikTok, X and Snap that they will form an online safety action table, where they’ll discuss “tangible steps” towards protecting people from online harms.
Eby says the social media companies have “agreed to work collaboratively” with the province on preventing harm, while Meta will also commit to working with B.C’s emergency management officials to help amplify official information during natural disasters and other events.
“We have had assurance from Facebook on a couple of things. First, that they will work with us to deliver emergency information to British Columbia in this wildfire season that (people) can rely on, they can find easily, and that will link into official government channels to distribute information quickly and effectively,” Eby said at a Tuesday press conference.
“This is a major step and I’m very appreciative that we are in this place now.”
The announcement to put the bill on hold is a sharp turn for the government, after Eby announced in March that social media companies were among the “wrongdoers” that would pay for health-related costs linked to their platforms.
At the time, Eby compared social media harms to those caused by tobacco and opioids, saying the legislation was similar to previous laws that allowed the province to sue companies selling those products.
Last August, Eby criticized Meta over its continued blackout of Canadian news outlets as wildfires forced thousands from their homes. Eby said it was “unacceptable” for the tech giant to cut off access to news on its platforms at a time when people needed timely, potentially life-saving information.
“I think it’s fair to say that I was very skeptical, following the initial contact (with Meta),” Eby said Tuesday.
Eby said one of the key drivers for legislation targetting online harm was the death of Carson Cleland, the 12-year-old Prince George, B.C., boy who died by suicide last October after falling victim to online sextortion.
The premier says in announcing the pause that bringing social media companies to the table for discussion achieves the same purpose of protecting youth from online harm.
“Our commitment to every parent is that we will do everything we can to keep their families safe online and in our communities,” the premier said in his statement.
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VICTORIA — Premier David Eby has pushed the pause button on a contentious bill that would have allowed the province to recover health care and other costs attributed to the marketing of risky products in B.C.
Two dozen business and industry groups had called for the New Democrats to put the bill on hold, claiming it was so broadly drafted that it could be used to go after producers, distributors and retailers of every kind.
“It is safe to say that we got the attention of these major multinational companies,” the premier told reporters on Tuesday, citing the deal with Meta, Snapchat, TikTok and X, the major players in the field.
“They understand our concern and the urgency with which we’re approaching this issue. They also understand the bill is still there.”
The New Democrats maintain that the legislation was never intended to capture the many B.C. companies and associations that complained about it.
Rather it was targeted at Facebook owner Meta and other social media companies and the online harm done to young people. A prime example was the suicide of a Prince George youth who was trapped by an online predator.
Still, there was nothing in the wording of Bill 12, the Public Health Accountability and Cost Recovery Act, to indicate its application would be confined to social media companies or their impact on young people.
Some critics wondered if the bill’s broad-based concept of harms and risks could be used to prosecute the liquor board or the dispensers of safer-supply drugs, products with proven harms greater than any sugary drink.
Perhaps thinking along those lines, the government specifically exempted itself from prosecution under the Act.
This week’s announcement came as a surprise. As recently as Monday, Attorney General Niki Sharma told reporters the government had no intention of putting the bill on hold.
Tuesday, she justified her evasion by saying the talks with the social media companies were intense and confidential.
She said the pause was conditional on Meta and the other companies delivering a quick response to government concerns.
“British Columbians expect us to take action on online safety,” she told reporters. “What I’ll be looking for at this table is quick and immediate action to get to that better, safety online.”
A prime goal is addressing online harassment and “the online mental health and anxiety that’s rising in young people,” she said
“I want to sit down with these companies look at them face to face and see what they can do immediately to improve the outcomes for British Columbians.”
Meta has already committed to rectifying Eby’s concern that it should relay urgent news about wildfires, flood and other disasters in B.C. Last year, those were blocked, collateral damage in the company’s hardball dispute with the federal government over linking to news stories from Canadian media companies.
Eby says he was very skeptical about the initial contact from the companies. Now he sees Meta’s willingness to deliver emergency information as a “major step” and he’s prepared to give talks the benefit of the doubt.
Not long ago he was scoring political points off the social media companies in the harshest terms.
“The billionaires who run them resist accountability, resist any suggestion that they have responsibility for the harms that they are causing,” said the premier on March 14, the day Bill 12 was introduced.
Given those characterizations, perhaps the big, faceless billionaires will simply direct their negotiating team to play for time until the legislation adjourns as scheduled on May 16.
“The legislation is not being pulled and we’re not backtracking,” said Sharma. “We can always come back and bring legislation back.”
The government could schedule a quick makeup session of the legislature in late May or June or even in early September, before the house is dissolved for the four-week campaign leading up to the scheduled election day, Oct. 19.
More likely, if the New Democrats feel doublecrossed, they could go back to war with the faceless billionaires with a view to re-enacting Bill 12 after a hoped-for election victory.
Even if the New Democrats get some satisfaction from the social media companies in the short term, they have also framed Bill 12 as a way to force the marketers of risky products to help cover the cost of health care and other services.
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