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A high school student created a fake 2020 candidate, and Twitter verified it
- jiveturkey 7y ago> Ballotpedia I love this. He did the equivalent of creating your own wikipedia entry, that you then cite.
- gowld 7y agoCitogenesis https://xkcd.com/978/ https://xkcd.com/978/
- jessaustin 7y agoA Twitter spokesperson recently told one publication, "Our worst-case scenario is that we verify someone who isn't actually the candidate." The choice of article is telling: that's worse for them than verifying some who isn't actually a candidate. Maybe Keybase could help them with this problem?
- jaywalk 7y agoI think their position is perfectly reasonable, though. Verifying a fake candidate is embarrassing for them, but that's about it. Verifying someone who claims to be Bernie Sanders but isn't can cause real harm outside of Twitter.
- mc32 7y agoSuch farcical comedy. They verify a fake candidate but refuse to verify well known but “problematic” public figures...
- geerlingguy 7y agoAccording to their own help pages[1], the verification system is 'on hold'. Of course, they are still verifying accounts somehow—apparently not in any way that's intelligent or sane. [1] https://help.twitter.com/en/managing-your-account/about-twitter-verified-accounts https://help.twitter.com/en/managing-your-account/about-twit...
- chrisseaton 7y agoRequesting verification is on hold.
- sp332 7y agoIt's because they didn't do this verification. Which I'm fine with - I don't need Twitter to set up hoops for people running for office to jump through. They relied on Ballotpedia and Ballotpedia screwed up.
- Pfhreak 7y agoThese are two different issues. They both relate to verification, but they are orthogonal. An accident in verifying someone is a failure in the system's ability to correctly find evidence. Removing verification from people who violate TOS or spread messages that Twitter does not want to endorse is deliberate but unrelated.
- adnzzzzZ 7y agoVerification should serve the purpose of verification alone and not related to what Twitter agrees with as a company or not. They're a platform and should act as one. https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/1231290805211496448 https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/123129080521149644..., https://twitter.com/timsweeneyepic/status/1016084306761015296 https://twitter.com/timsweeneyepic/status/101608430676101529...
- Pfhreak 7y agoSpeaking personally, I disagree. A blue check has cultural and feature implications beyond 'this person is who they claim to be'.
- mc32 7y agoThen they should have multiple marks. One which means “we sanction this person/their twitter persona” and another which means, “this twitter persona belongs to or is controlled by the person who it claims to be.” We don’t need this muddled confusing system.
- chii 7y agoTwitter wants the best of both worlds. They want the increased exposure and retention from celebrities, but without taking any responsibility when they are controversial. They are deliberately keeping the verification mark vague, so that people "misunderstand" it and so Twitter can claim publically that they aren't really endorsing anyone (but remove the mark from people they don't want to endorse).
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- cryptoz 7y agoWhy would Twitter want to verify someone who is problematic? Sounds like a recipe for disaster. Their definition of verification includes public interest, and if the public is not interested in someone problematic, why would Twitter verify them in the first place?
- keanzu 7y agoProblematic lies in the eye of the beholder.
- Hokusai 7y ago> Problematic lies in the eye of the beholder. You are right. I guess that it would be more accurate to talk about xenophobic and racist content providers instead of 'problematic'. Naming them for what they are makes it way more clear.
- mc32 7y agoI was thinking “problematic” people like Assange. I included scare quotes cuz that’s what it is. I don’t know if Assange is xenophobic or whatever, but he is a well known person yet they failed to checkmark him.
- FillardMillmore 7y agoJust to be clear, I don't think Assange would be considered "problematic" for anything like xenophobia, but rather his history of aiding and facilitating the release of information that governments find to be inconvenient.
- Hokusai 7y ago> ... judges decided that the US constitution's First Amendment did not apply to YouTube, a private company. The legal system sides with you. Platforms are not forced to accept members that go against the platform core values or economic interests. Tweeter brand is tied to the people that uses the service. * https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-51658341 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-51658341
- injb 7y agoExactly. The article is part of the farce as I see it, in that they still continue to take Twitter seriously: >>...that a teenager using next to no resources was able to quickly create a fake candidate in his free time and get it verified by Twitter raises questions about the company's preparedness ... Raises questions? On the contrary - it settles any questions about about their preparedness. >>The creation of a fake candidate account is in violation of our rules and the account has been permanently suspended So the punishment for not existing is, you get banned. That's actually their response. Next up: teenager uploads photo of all legitimate candidates to ThisPersonIsNotReal.com and gets them all perma-banned from Twitter...
- SlowRobotAhead 7y ago> So the punishment for not existing is, you get banned. That's actually their response. Ha yea...If you expected introspection, you don’t know Twitter the company very well. I really hope SV moves past this “surely we have an obligation to direct society” thing and gets back to hackers and geeks doing cool things. Not holding my breathe though.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- cambalache 7y agoTwitter is a "propaganda" private forum with their own agenda. Same for the other players. If it is good for society or if we need an actually independent place are other questions.
- craftyguy 7y ago> but refuse to verify well known but “problematic” public figures... I'm not sure what you are talking about, they verified/allow at least one very problematic public figure (donald trump)
- IIAOPSW 7y agoIts a lot easier to detect problematic over not-problematic but fake.
- jandrese 7y ago> The student, who CNN Business spoke to with the permission of his parents and has agreed not to name as he is a minor (half a page down) [Picture of the student in his school]
- netsharc 7y agoIt's just a generic building, isn't it? But if he/his parents think he can stay anonymous, I doubt it'd work. A schoolmate or a parent's colleague might talk about him on social media, and his identity could "go viral" real quickly.
- dave5104 7y agoOr someone could just send the photo over to Clearview AI.
- jerf 7y agoSurprise twist: It's actually from ThisHighSchoolStudentDoesNotExist.com.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- hombre_fatal 7y agoDid you miss the entire video interview he did at the top of the article? He simply doesn't want to share his name.
- all2 7y agoIn journalism (at least in one of the classes I took) there is an ongoing debate of anonymity while still being informative. The theoretical example we were given was of a deceased soldier. Do we share the name? The face? Both? The professor told us that professionally an editor will choose face or name, but not both in order to protect (to some extent) the identity of the subject, the subject's family, etc. I've not put a lot of thought into how this editorial decision needs to be changed in the face of newer tech (reverse image search, facial recognition, etc).
- sdan 7y agoIn an age where world wars could potentially start via Twitter and getting verified is the stamp of approval of being a political/celebrity/public figure, this is pretty wild.
- riffic 7y agothe verification process is broken and I would argue it is unable to be fixed, otherwise the company would have fixed it already. Verification badges are bestowed upon you from above, they are not something people can actively ask for.
- dudul 7y agoHow would a world war start via Twitter?
- aggie 7y ago"Wars could start" only in that the people who could start wars by other channels happen to use Twitter. The president could make a bombastic statement in a TV interview just as easily. It's not like some random who managed to get a check mark is going to have any significant influence just because they are 'verified'.
- Apocryphon 7y agoAndrew Walz/Deez Nuts unity ticket 2020
- riffic 7y agoTwitter's verification "process" is opaque and ad-hoc. I would recommend looking at alternatives because it's truly mindless to put your verification eggs into Twitter Inc's proverbial basket.
- AcerbicZero 7y agoCNN, the news network which threatened to doxx someone over a meme, among other great achievements as of late.
- Miner49er 7y agoMeanwhile, candidates like Joshua Collins[1] can't get verified, even after they changed the policy. An article about some others: https://thehill.com/policy/technology/484453-twitter-falling-short-on-pledge-to-verify-primary-candidates https://thehill.com/policy/technology/484453-twitter-falling... [1]: https://twitter.com/Joshua4Congress https://twitter.com/Joshua4Congress
- markdown 7y agoAFAIK nobody can get verified. This has been the case for the past two years according to Twitter: https://twitter.com/verified https://twitter.com/verified
- mschuster91 7y agoThere are cases especially for politicians and NGOs that do get a verification, I know of at least one that got verified two days ago. It's just extremely intransparent who gets verified, who can initiate a verification and what the criteria are. My guess is that contacts at major political parties / ad spenders help as these can ask via their ad account manager.
- uoaei 7y agoSo who actually decides when to put blue checks on whom?
- tomschlick 7y agoTwitter employees determine it based on unknown criteria and political agendas.
- nloomans 7y agoThis isn't true. Take the @valvesoftware twitter account for example: https://web.archive.org/web/20191118232351/https:/twitter.com/valvesoftware https://web.archive.org/web/20191118232351/https:/twitter.co... The account was already verified right from the start.
- rahan46g 7y ago> A high school student created a fake 2020 candidate, and Twitter verified it > A high school student created a fake 2020 candidate, and Twitter verified it > A high school student created a fake 2020 candidate, and Twitter verified it Hihyu iii
- maram 7y agoMaking the blue verified check exclusive is the main problem here. Twitter internal system/process of verifying accounts is fundamentally broken...why don’t they open this to everyone and people can apply with their official ID?! They can add/create another Check mark for celebrities..but verified real accounts of people should be for everyone. Twitter is a public sphere and They should be able to identify real accounts easily. I don’t want to waste my time talking to accounts under pseudonyms..
- capableweb 7y agoI'm sure many of the conversations you've had on HN and elsewhere has been with people under pseudonyms. Just because they are using a pseudonym doesn't mean it's not a conversation not worth having. The value should be based on the actual conversation, not under what circumstance it's being held.
- tptacek 7y agoThat's a detached, rational, coherent way of looking at things that has very little to do with how actual people "use" the blue checkmark, and how Twitter grooms its users to use it. The more complicated reality of how the checkmark works is that Twitter wants to have things both ways: the checkmarks promote accounts, and Twitter benefits from the increased engagement resulting from promoted accounts, and promoted accounts benefit from the exclusivity of the checkmark. But promoting accounts also puts Twitter on the hook, perceptually, for what some of those accounts say, so Twitter also has a fig leaf notion of the checkmark as simply a "verification system". But it's obviously not that.
- lonelappde 7y agoHow so? Checkmark means "this account is owned by who you think owns it" to disambiguate celebrities from parodies and identity theives/trolls. The fact some people crave being famous enough to merit a checkmark is not a problem with checkmarks. People chase status of all kinds.
- throwaway_tech 7y agoMaybe Twitter did this for the free publicity.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- tonydiv 7y agoIf you're a reporter in the space who wants to know more about this, happy to share more. This is just the tip of the iceberg.
- 32gbsd 7y agoI am not surprised they give blue tickets to the biggest kissers. You just have to be a certain type. regular people? naw. Well in their defense if it was not exclusive and "hard" to get then what would be the value?
- zaptheimpaler 7y agoAs if news outlets don't regularly get things wrong or push biased views? I don't see why Twitter should all of a sudden be saddled with the responsibility of getting everything right. The mainstream media shirked that responsibility a long time ago, and so did the government. Voting is a core function of democracy, so its the governments job to publish a true, up-to-date, and accessible list of who the current 2020 candidates are. And voters responsibility to know and spread the word about that list. Time has shown that outsourcing crucial functions of democracy to corporations with misaligned incentives does not work well.
- Veen 7y ago> I don't see why Twitter should all of a sudden be saddled with the responsibility... The problem is that Twitter made a big deal about verifying candidates and partnered with a third-party organization to do so. Because of that, people believe that if a candidate is verified by Twitter, they are the genuine article. There is no need for them to be suspicious because the Twitter account has been professionally vetted already. No one forced Twitter to take on that role. The problem is Twitter claiming to verify candidates, but doing a shitty job of it. The better alternatives are (i) Twitter not claiming to verify anyone or (ii) Twitter doing a good job of verifying the identity of candidates. What they are doing is the worst possible course of action.
- thefifthsetpin 7y agoBut... isn't he really the person behind the fake 2020 candidate? Seems like the process basically worked. At worst, twitter made a slightly embarrassing decision about who warrants verification.
- jupp0r 7y agoThey were the legitimate owner of the fake candidates website and identity. I don’t see the problem in the verification process. It would be broken if I could create an account for a real politician and it would be verified.
- NiceWayToDoIT 7y agoIsn't Twitter verify account program on hold for few years now? I went to their page and message is still there? https://help.twitter.com/en/managing-your-account/about-twitter-verified-accounts https://help.twitter.com/en/managing-your-account/about-twit...
- luord 7y agoLeaving aside the comments on twitter. That kid would probably do a great job in information security, if he was so inclined; he clearly has the instincts for it.