What happens when social media firms monetise key features?

Meta and Twitter are pivoting to a model where users will have to pay for additional privileges.

Social media giants like Facebook-parent Meta and Elon Musk-owned Twitter are pivoting to a model where users will have to pay for additional privileges and other important features. This shift has been accelerating since Musk made Twitter’s blue verification ticks a paid feature. The Twitter Blue subscription gives users options to post longer tweets and videos, edit and format text, and see fewer ads.

In June, Meta followed suit. It rolled out paid verification in India with badges and support for account issues. Apart from the privileges and bonus features, Twitter and Meta, separately, also put some security feature behind the paywall in past weeks.

Twitter ended its two-factor authentication (2FA) via text message/SMS for users who were not subscribed to its paid Twitter Blue service. While Twitter authenticates users through an app or a security key as well, the SMS feature is reserved for users who can pay for Twitter Blue.

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“While historically a popular form of 2FA, unfortunately we have seen phone-number based 2FA be used - and abused - by bad actors. So starting today, we will no longer allow accounts to enrol in the text message/SMS method of 2FA unless they are Twitter Blue subscribers,” said Twitter in a blog post in February, giving non-subscribers 30 days to choose another 2FA method or have their accounts disabled.

But even if users switch to another 2FA mode, their phone number will still be connected to their Twitter account, the company confirmed.

There weren’t any significant advantages to putting security features behind a paywall and it was an “anti-consumer” and “anti-user” move for a company to make, said Prateek Waghre, Policy Director at the Internet Freedom Foundation, an Indian NGO focusing on digital rights.