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Can you elaborate a bit? What has changed with either, as it impacts a user? I've looked hard but found zero change whatsoever.

ncallaway 4y ago
Sure. Lots of public figures that I’ve heard of, but don’t follow, make statements on Twitter. When I come across those statements previously, if it says George Bush with a blue check, I just trusted that George Bush made that statement. Now, I don’t. So, what used to be a fairly reliable way to get to a pretty solid primary source for plenty of statements has become unreliable. I’m not really worried about over the top parody, that’s easy to spot, but more subtle impersonations really concern me. If, say, the Defense Minister of a foreign country posts something provocative, it’s much harder for me to know if they really posted that or not. It doesn’t impact me as a user who posts things, but it has a serious impact on me as a user who wants to validate that X person really did say Y.
- AlchemistCamp 4y ago
  Is there an account successfully impersonating George Bush now? Can you link to it? My experience has been that there have been a TON of impersonators over the past 5 years, and the largest number I've come across have been impersonating Elon Musk and Vitalik Buterin. Trusting all blue checks a year ago would have been a very, very foolish strategy. From what I've seen, the verification hasn't gotten at all worse in the last week.
  - ncallaway 4y ago
    > Trusting all blue checks a year ago would have been a very, very foolish strategy. Trust is a spectrum, and the old system wasn’t perfect, but it was vastly vastly better. I wouldn’t have absolute trust that an account was who it purported to be before, but I had much higher confidence that I did before. > From what I've seen, the verification hasn't gotten at all worse in the last week. Then we’ve had vastly different experiences. Did you miss the part where he sold verification for $8, but stopped doing the verification as part of that? It seems preposterous to claim nothing changed in this regard, while they literally introduced a new feature that entirely changed this aspect of the product. Edit: to clarify, I don’t think it’s preposterous to claim that your experience is better or unchanged in the new system. What seems preposterous to me is the claim that it’s unchanged from a month ago, when this specific area has undergone a drastic functional change.
    - AlchemistCamp 4y ago
      It may seem preposterous to you, but none of the few hundred accounts I follow have had a change in verification status. I haven't seen a sudden surge in strangers in my feed with them, either. I also haven't seen an uptick in attempted scams. If anything, the number of fake Vitaliks and fake Elons with blue checks running scams (usually starting with an offer to give away crypto) I've stumbled across has been lower than it was early in the year. Perhaps there will be large changes over time due to the more open verification process recently announced, but they would take time to ripple out and have any impact on us more normal users.

ncallaway 4y ago

Sure. Lots of public figures that I’ve heard of, but don’t follow, make statements on Twitter. When I come across those statements previously, if it says George Bush with a blue check, I just trusted that George Bush made that statement. Now, I don’t. So, what used to be a fairly reliable way to get to a pretty solid primary source for plenty of statements has become unreliable. I’m not really worried about over the top parody, that’s easy to spot, but more subtle impersonations really concern me. If, say, the Defense Minister of a foreign country posts something provocative, it’s much harder for me to know if they really posted that or not. It doesn’t impact me as a user who posts things, but it has a serious impact on me as a user who wants to validate that X person really did say Y.

AlchemistCamp 4y ago
Is there an account successfully impersonating George Bush now? Can you link to it? My experience has been that there have been a TON of impersonators over the past 5 years, and the largest number I've come across have been impersonating Elon Musk and Vitalik Buterin. Trusting all blue checks a year ago would have been a very, very foolish strategy. From what I've seen, the verification hasn't gotten at all worse in the last week.
- ncallaway 4y ago
  > Trusting all blue checks a year ago would have been a very, very foolish strategy. Trust is a spectrum, and the old system wasn’t perfect, but it was vastly vastly better. I wouldn’t have absolute trust that an account was who it purported to be before, but I had much higher confidence that I did before. > From what I've seen, the verification hasn't gotten at all worse in the last week. Then we’ve had vastly different experiences. Did you miss the part where he sold verification for $8, but stopped doing the verification as part of that? It seems preposterous to claim nothing changed in this regard, while they literally introduced a new feature that entirely changed this aspect of the product. Edit: to clarify, I don’t think it’s preposterous to claim that your experience is better or unchanged in the new system. What seems preposterous to me is the claim that it’s unchanged from a month ago, when this specific area has undergone a drastic functional change.
  - AlchemistCamp 4y ago
    It may seem preposterous to you, but none of the few hundred accounts I follow have had a change in verification status. I haven't seen a sudden surge in strangers in my feed with them, either. I also haven't seen an uptick in attempted scams. If anything, the number of fake Vitaliks and fake Elons with blue checks running scams (usually starting with an offer to give away crypto) I've stumbled across has been lower than it was early in the year. Perhaps there will be large changes over time due to the more open verification process recently announced, but they would take time to ripple out and have any impact on us more normal users.