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I never understood “verified” tags for press. It allowed then to impersonate real experts. They should have just had a press tag

by rdtwo 4y ago

paulgb 4y ago
“Verified” was never meant to mean “blindly trust this person”, it was meant to mean “this is the (notable/famous) person it says it is, not an impersonator”. Some people put too much weight on it, and I partly blame Twitter for making it a status game (e.g. using verified status to influence ranking algorithms) and for kneecapping the security feature by allowing display name changes without further verification.
- ghaff 4y ago
  Rightly or wrongly, Twitter decided that there were certain classes of people--the mainstream famous, big media journalists, politicians--for whom it was important to know if tweets were really from that person or not. Not even past impersonation attempts were taken into account. However, as you say, it became a status thing with even people well-known in various communities with thousands of followers being algorithmically denied checks and taking it as a personal slight.
  - rdtwo 4y ago
    I just didn’t think having verified for press made much sense. Their opinions were/are as well informed as that of an average joe blue blow. A press tag wold have helped inform that they were also likely to be poorly informed.
ajross 4y ago
Indeed, you seem to have misunderstood the whole point. If "verified" was supposed to mean "expert", then they would have called it the "expert" tag. Instead "verified" means (meant) "verified" -- Twitter checked the poster out and will vouch that the human being behind the account is who they say they are. That this then led to scarcity and a weird status stratification is unfortunate. But literally no one at Twitter or elsewhere ever tried to say these checkmarks denoted "expertise", so I don't know where you got that.
- rdtwo 4y ago
  It was annoying having to figure out why a person was verified. Especially if it turned out that the only reason was that they had a press pass.
  - ajross 4y ago
    OK, you're just talking about the stratification then. That's really a very different argument. It's true that some people would want to be "verified" and couldn't be because they didn't meet whatever internal notability guidelines Twitter implemented. And it's likewise true that traditional news organizations had a shortcut to get anyone with a byline verified. And maybe that's unfair. But it has absolutely nothing to do with "expert". Verification was verification of identity. They told you that in the text that popped up when you clicked on the checkmark!
    - ghaff 4y ago
      That's exactly it. Big media, for some definition of same, mostly got a pass--as did (I think) politicians. Pretty much everything else was at the whims of Twitter's algorithms which were presumably based on some sort of obscure notability score.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    If you read the guidelines it was pretty clearly spelled out. With respect to journalists, from what I can tell "big media" like the networks, New York Times, major magazines, etc. were pretty automatic but things got sort of random once you go to small publications, contributors, freelancers, and so forth--especially those without a huge twitter fan base.
  - jakelazaroff 4y ago
    Who cares, though? I truly don’t understand this obsession with the blue checkmarks, and so far no one has actually explained it to me. Elon said he was getting rid of the “lords and peasants system” by allowing anyone to buy a blue check. Why does having one make you a “lord”? Why should I feel like a “peasant” for not having one? It doesn’t make sense to me.

I never understood “verified” tags for press. It allowed then to impersonate real experts. They should have just had a press tag

by rdtwo 4y ago

I never understood “verified” tags for press. It allowed then to impersonate real experts. They should have just had a press tag

paulgb 4y ago

“Verified” was never meant to mean “blindly trust this person”, it was meant to mean “this is the (notable/famous) person it says it is, not an impersonator”. Some people put too much weight on it, and I partly blame Twitter for making it a status game (e.g. using verified status to influence ranking algorithms) and for kneecapping the security feature by allowing display name changes without further verification.

ghaff 4y ago
Rightly or wrongly, Twitter decided that there were certain classes of people--the mainstream famous, big media journalists, politicians--for whom it was important to know if tweets were really from that person or not. Not even past impersonation attempts were taken into account. However, as you say, it became a status thing with even people well-known in various communities with thousands of followers being algorithmically denied checks and taking it as a personal slight.
- rdtwo 4y ago
  I just didn’t think having verified for press made much sense. Their opinions were/are as well informed as that of an average joe blue blow. A press tag wold have helped inform that they were also likely to be poorly informed.

ajross 4y ago

Indeed, you seem to have misunderstood the whole point. If "verified" was supposed to mean "expert", then they would have called it the "expert" tag. Instead "verified" means (meant) "verified" -- Twitter checked the poster out and will vouch that the human being behind the account is who they say they are. That this then led to scarcity and a weird status stratification is unfortunate. But literally no one at Twitter or elsewhere ever tried to say these checkmarks denoted "expertise", so I don't know where you got that.

rdtwo 4y ago
It was annoying having to figure out why a person was verified. Especially if it turned out that the only reason was that they had a press pass.
- ajross 4y ago
  OK, you're just talking about the stratification then. That's really a very different argument. It's true that some people would want to be "verified" and couldn't be because they didn't meet whatever internal notability guidelines Twitter implemented. And it's likewise true that traditional news organizations had a shortcut to get anyone with a byline verified. And maybe that's unfair. But it has absolutely nothing to do with "expert". Verification was verification of identity. They told you that in the text that popped up when you clicked on the checkmark!
  - ghaff 4y ago
    That's exactly it. Big media, for some definition of same, mostly got a pass--as did (I think) politicians. Pretty much everything else was at the whims of Twitter's algorithms which were presumably based on some sort of obscure notability score.
- ghaff 4y ago
  If you read the guidelines it was pretty clearly spelled out. With respect to journalists, from what I can tell "big media" like the networks, New York Times, major magazines, etc. were pretty automatic but things got sort of random once you go to small publications, contributors, freelancers, and so forth--especially those without a huge twitter fan base.
- jakelazaroff 4y ago
  Who cares, though? I truly don’t understand this obsession with the blue checkmarks, and so far no one has actually explained it to me. Elon said he was getting rid of the “lords and peasants system” by allowing anyone to buy a blue check. Why does having one make you a “lord”? Why should I feel like a “peasant” for not having one? It doesn’t make sense to me.