The layout was fubar so I had to create paragraphs, fix capitalization problems, etc.
Years ago, before verified accounts were a thing, back when I was on Eastenders, I was contacted multiple times by parents of children who had been "conversing" with me online. 11-15 year old children that had been talking with a fake me. I was informed one of these children went missing.
I didn't have social media at the time, I didn't understand it. It's a horror show, for years people pushed for some way, to root out the fakes. There was a phase, if you remember, of people posting images of themselves with their URL. I did that on every site I could find, Facebook, myspace, Bebo, anything. I felt powerless to stop people using my name and face to scam or groom people. That's why verification came to be. Because it was important to protect people.
It wasn't for clout, or for leveraging money from a platform. It was to protect people from utter scumbags. I think that perhaps, in this age of social media, there are some CEO's who may have forgotten the importance of protecting people, of having trustworthy sources. I don't tweet much, I am scared of the internet, I struggle with a lot of things in life. But this account exists so that fake accounts can't.
If @elonmusk removes that simple ability to protect people, to protect children with verification then this company is dead in the water. I don't know if it's been expressed to him, I doubt he will see this thread. But I hope someone is explaining to @elonmusk the actual dangers to children and the vulnerable and why removing that protection, is an action that will lead directly to a child being endangered.
Verification is a public service, it is a good deed performed by companies who contribute very little good to the world in my opinion. We should be making easier clearer paths to verification for everyone, not making it harder. It is their responsibility, not a business model.
I am very dissapointed in this thread. So many unable to see past their dislike of some celebs to recognize an obvious cybersecurity threat that causes real harm. I don't know who this person is and if they suck or not but they are correct about the true purpose of bluecheck marks as I called out a few days ago. Libs will build a clout class system on top of any feature that doesn't mean we need to throw out the baby with the bath water.
I am very disappointed in this thread.
Me too. I was dismayed by the comments but I kept my mouth shut because I've been argumentative and I didn't want to seem like I was somehow supporting Musk.
This makes sense. I guess it goes to show how social media warps something that should be useful into some weird symbol sought after by clout chasers.
The bluecheck is the mark of modern aristocracy. It can and has been used to un-verify people for political reasons.
Why can't I have a bluecheck? I am who I say I am. You're telling me these rich fucks don't have $8/month? Sure they do.
wrapping anything in the guise of ‘for the children’ is sinister and disingenuous
I am once again asking you to stop having your illegal street races at 8:55 am in front of the school
I mean blue checks as they exist are definitely for clout, what he's actually arguing for here is some kind of government Internet ID system so no more anonymity.
so no more anonymity
Not quite, it would be pretty trivial for a government identity verification system to mark public persons and companies that want to participate in the verification scheme as verified, while anyone who wishes to remain anonymous or not participate in that remains unverified.
What if I'm a streamer with 5000 followers. Why can't I be verified?
What if I'm a community leader in a town with 1000 residents. Why won't Twitter verify me?
Because bluechecks are not for us. They don't exist for the stated reason. They exist to confer status on those whom Twitter executives deem worthy.
I usually agree with the majority on this site but I feel like we're acting really weird about this one. Musk's idea is fucking dumb. And even if its mostly dumb in a benign way we should literally always be dunking on the richest man in existence anyway.
Its literaly 2 people with their hot takes. Don't take the fringes of this site as any sort of "majority" so easily.
I don't think any reasonable discussion of this would deny the merit of the original intent. You can even go further and make strong arguments for taking blue checks away from twitter altogether and have it be on a government level.
However as it currently exists, despite the global influence of twitter, US online culture still dominates to such an extent that american liberal biases have perverted the original intent of the system.
In other words, yes blue checks were originally a decent idea, but these days you have a small benefit it brings on one side and the massive influence on public political and social discourse on the other side.
liberal commentariat and insufferable celebrities literally melting down when they are asked to pay 8 dollars
They're not upset they have to pay $8/month.
They're upset that anyone can pay $8/month.
Yeah the origin of the "verified" marks on various sites and services is probably somewhat obscured nowadays, and it was actually generally well-received when verified accounts became a thing due to the prevalence of, mostly, scams. The dilution of its value happened long before :melon-musk: from what I can gather. I forget the first website I saw doing it, I know it wasn't the bird site because I've only ever gotten linked there and never participated.
Maybe it already does something like this, but if someone starts chatting with you and they have a similar name to a verified account, sites could say "
this user is unverified, and might be impersonating: <profile badge or something> (dismiss) (report)" - simple as that. Because as it stands, the absence of verification isn't an immediate red flag to the vast majority of people (who would already fall for some kind of celeb romance scam, or worse). Maybe if every other user had an "unverified" mark, it would stick in peoples' minds to look for it.There's still a pretty common trend of country musicians and shit being impersonated on Facebook etc and romance-scamming thousands from senior citizens. The chats are pretty wild, Kieth Urban (pretty sure that's one of them) telling :meemaw: that he needs them to wire 10K to get away from his wife so they can elope.
I'm so glad The Simpsons taught me to doubt anyone who says, "Won't someone think of the children‽‽‽"
There are better systems than Twitter style verification to protect children online (although it is actually impossible to fully protect children online unless you limit them completely to certain websites and search terms within those websites).
![A tweet thread by English actor Robert Kazinsky on the importance of verified accounts in protecting children. [CW: missing child]](https://i.imgur.com/Xyzkcid.jpg){kind=link}