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.

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  • TawnyFroggy [she/her]
    ·
    2 years ago

    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.

    • BynarsAreOk [none/use name]
      ·
      2 years ago

      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.