4 ms·

Verification 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 a

• Pfhreak 7y ago
  Speaking personally, I disagree. A blue check has cultural and feature implications beyond 'this person is who they claim to be'.
  • mc32 7y ago
    Then 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 ago
      Twitter 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).
  • meowface 7y ago
    Does it? I personally think it should solely mean "this person is a public figure and is who they claim to be". If they believe the person has violated their policies, then they should just ban them. If they don't want them having a blue checkmark when the ban expires, then they should ban them for life. Leaving them in this weird limbo without a blue checkmark turns it into something more like "Twitter's badge of approval", and feels petty and vaguely dystopian. I think it should just be "Twitter's badge of this-account-is-not-an-impersonator". As another poster said, if they truly insist on this badge of approval, then they should have two checkmarks: one for verification, and one for "we consider this person a respectable, trustworthy, and upstanding member of the Twitter community" or whatever.
    • FillardMillmore 7y ago
      Coming from someone who does not use Twitter and knows little about it, what do you think constitutes a 'public figure' in Twitter's view? Someone who can sell out an arena? Someone who writes a blog read by tens of thousands of people? A Youtuber with 2000 subscribers?
      • lonelappde 7y ago
        Someone who gets impersonated.
  • Shivetya 7y ago
    it is a badge created by a single platform, it only has value for those who use the platform. cultural, hell I bet a good number of twitter users don't know what it means.
  • Thorentis 7y ago
    That's what it was originally for. It was so that you could distinguish a celebritie's real account, from the many fake accounts using that same name for fun/satire/just because. But then, Twitter realised it could make money from the increased engagement blue check marked accounts generate. So it became exclusive. And then when they realised they'd be publicly/socially liable when celebrities said things Twitter the company didn't like, Twitter threatened removal of the check mark. So the check mark became Twitters stamp of approval to use, and be popular on, their platform. The blue check mark should only ever have been a way to say "the name and identity I claim to have on their profile has been verified". That should be open to Leonardo DeCaprio, and John Smith down the street.
• bagacrap 7y ago
  A platform can have biases. In fact experience shows that it must have biases in order to retain ordinary users (cf. 8chan).
  • SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
    > A platform can have biases. No. A publisher can have biases. You would not appreciate any utility changing your service because of biases.