Meta’s New Service: The Subscription Plan Digitally Divide Users
New Service
On Sunday Facebook owned Parent company, Meta announced paid-for subscription service. Earlier Facebook wrote the slogan that read the site was “free and always will be.” However, the announcement got high criticism.
On Sunday, Meta announced that it would be launching a paid subscription service. This paid service will cost $11.99 for the web and $14.99 for mobile. Now, critics have raised deep concerns about the way the social media giant has chosen to structure its new offering.
Digital Divide
As per experts, the new subscription service will create a digital caste system of “haves and have-nots”. The paid service will benefit subscribers with a verification badge. Apart from this, an extra protection against impersonation, direct access to customer support and added visibility.
However, users too have mock the service trolling Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg with trolls and memes.
Well-formed Path
Meta is following the footsteps of well-formed path to subscription services of companies like, Twitter, Reddit and Snapchat, which are already in this game.
Raising the concern, online safety expert, Kavya Pearlman said, “Safety and security features must NOT be up for sale”.
According to reports, Pearlman was unimpressed with the idea of paying for protection. She claims that it would create a “digital caste system” of haves and have-nots.
Talking to Twitter, she questioned why users who provide their data to the company and the “human who actually acts within T&S while on the platform” has to pay “and not the one who impersonates me or one who takes my data”.
She further says, “So let me get this straight, I am the human who provide my data to a company & also the human who actually acts within terms and conditions while on the platform. But I am the one who has to pay and not the one who impersonates me or one who takes my data or @facebook using MY data for targeted ads.”
Moreover, a lobby group called the ‘Real Facebook Oversight Board’, which is highly critical of Meta, tweeted, “now Facebook wants you to fund the harmful model that fuels its whole business.”
Analysis
Sinan Aral, a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), raised the concern for this service. He in his 2 years of experiment conducted and analyzed the impact account labeling had on online behavior.
He said his study showed that “high sign” like Twitter Blue or Meta Verified could lead to more “knee jerk” reactions, a divide between “in groups and out groups” and can escalate focus on personalities over content.
Moreover, financial analysts said the new models being tested by social media companies would not come close in generating the tens of billions that the likes of Meta make from advertising.
The new Meta service will first be rolled out in Australia and New Zealand. While users trolled Zukerberg for copying Twitter CEO Elon Musk, Matt Navarra, a social media consultant suggests that the launch is a “bit unplanned and last minute.”
Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities says the move is “risky” and that “there could be clear backlash from consumers that will never pay a dime for Facebook or Instagram and this move could push them out the door.”
