Zuckerberg takes a page out of Musk's playbook

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, confused a lot of people last weekend when it said it will begin selling $12-a-month subscriptions starting in Australia and New Zealand, and eventually the United States. No, it is not going to charge everyone for using its social networks.

Instead, Meta is testing a paid account “verification” service. That will come with a blue check mark after they’ve checked your ID and something desperately needed by everyone on Facebook: access to real-human customer service to deal with rampant account lockouts and hacker takeovers. They see your vulnerability as a business opportunity.

  WaPo

To be fair, they see EVERYTHING as a business opportunity, so don't take it personally.

Elon Musk’s Twitter recently said it will start charging for a basic security feature that used to be free. Going forward, Twitter says that two-factor text-message authentication will only be available to people who subscribe to its $8 Blue service.

[...]

While the details are different, both companies’ moves remind me of the protection rackets run by mobsters: force people to make regular payments in exchange for “security.”

Again, to be fair, mob tactics have been proven to work.

Twitter’s shift, [Rachel Tobac, the CEO of SocialProof Security] said, is the equivalent of secretly undoing someone’s seat belt while they’re driving; Facebook’s money grab is like charging them extra to send help when they get in a crash.

Twitter users can move to Post (Pulitzer) or Mastodon. And Facebook users can probably quit Facebook. Unless, of course, you use it for business.

“One of the reasons Facebook accounts are taken over so frequently is because so few users have the second step when they log in. They are easily phished or tricked,” [said a security expert]. (You can, and should turn this on now here.)

Yes, you should.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.