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I think the pay-for-verification might solve those problems ship sailed when Twitter decided that a symbol which had previously meant they'd attempted verificat

I think the pay-for-verification might solve those problems ship sailed when Twitter decided that a symbol which had previously meant they'd attempted verification could be given to pretty much anyone who paid them $8 a month... Impersonation-at-scale depends on scale, not verification of individual accounts as authentic people with authentic notability and opinions, and impersonation not at scale sometimes feels more motivated to pay the $8 than the person or position being impersonated.

anonuser123456 4y ago
Once/if consumers value identity this might change. If everyone on twitter were paying for verification, I think twitter would be much more interested in defending the sanctity of said system. As it stands, they are currently just trying to get the feature out there and get people to pay. Getting it deployed trumps making it perfect.
- notahacker 4y ago
  They already had a verification feature deployed which wasn't perfect but was reasonably strict. Then they debased it for a new revenue stream. I don't see them making the now that we've got a bunch of people paying for it, lets reduce our revenue by suddenly becoming strict on it again decision. Or people taking the badge more seriously now it just means someone subscribed to Twitter Blue
halJordan 4y ago
I get the "i hate Twitter/elon" attitude, but the truth is that the CA system has been dependent on pay-to-verify for some time now and despite whatever grievances you have against verisign or whoever it's brought us to today safely enough.
- commandersaki 4y ago
  The pay-to-verify is the reason why a significant chunk of the Internet didn't have HTTPS. It was the inception of free CAs like Lets Encrypt that made 90+% HTTPS penetration.
  - xeromal 4y ago
    I'd argue laziness is the reason most of the internet didn't have HTTPS. Browsers putting a scary checkmark next to the site is what made it happen.
- joe_the_user 4y ago
  And the problem with pay for identity is you can buy other people's identities. The news was full impersonations right after Twitter initiated it's pay for blue check marks. That we don't here about it now may just be a matter that the news stopped caring. URL squatting was a problem for a long time - the decision that trademark holder could seize domains helped but a web address today isn't considered a solid identity at this point so "the system working" is a bit of an exaggeration. Also, I'd note the gp didn't bad-mouth Elon or Verisign so your comment is a kind of riding a trolly false accusation.
- giaour 4y ago
  I think the problem was not that Twitter started charging $8/month ago much as that they gave up the expensive-to-perform ID verification workflow that had been in place. The CA system, on the other hand, has more or less abandoned the expensive, manual "extended verification" process in favor of the zero marginal cost "domain verification" process. This switchover drove the cost of a new cert to $0 for almost all users. So I'm really not following your analogy, since Twitter gave up the workflow and started charging (aka, a cash grab), whereas CAs gave up charging and adopted a more efficient workflow (aka the expected behavior of efficient markets).
  - biztos 4y ago
    Maybe Twitter Blue was a cash grab, but for me as a light user (and not a Blue) it’s way more transparent and sensible now. “Paid account with extra features” is just far easier to parse than “someone at Twitter thinks this person/company is both authentic and important.”
    - platz 4y ago
      100%
    - cachvico 4y ago
      But now (with Twitter) I can't trust anything I read without double-checking carefully it is not a fake account (and even then I cannot be sure). At least beforehand I was able to trust that Twitter has done the basic KYC. The Meta implementation therefore seems smarter (depends on gov ID).
      - throwntoday 4y ago
        Why did you ever trust anything on twitter without double-checking? Consider how much misinformation you have processed over the years because of too much faith in a platform to disseminate facts over fiction.
        libraryatnight 4y ago
pessimizer 4y ago
> a symbol which had previously meant they'd attempted verification That's not what it meant. It was an award for being notable. $8 is a fee that you pay to get verified.
- notahacker 4y ago
  It was an award for being an authentic notable person or entity, on the basis that the notable people and entities were most likely to be parodied or faked. Now it's an award for people that pay up
  - 300bps 4y ago
    It was an award for being an authentic notable person or entity Using an arbitrary and biased determinant of who is notable. https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2021/06/28/twitter-verification-blue-check-yashar-ali-kaivan-shroff https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2021/06/28/twitter-verifica...
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - palata 4y ago
      Maybe, but at least the verification seemed meaningful. And it feels like a meaningful verification doesn't generalise well: it's easy to pick a few people (arbitrarily) and truly verify them. But verifying millions of people... that's hard, unless you don't truly verify (in which case it's meaningless).
  - bombcar 4y ago
    It started out as “this is who you expect it is” for things like Obama or Trump, then it became “this is a person who speaks with authority of some sort, listen to them” and now it is just “someone pays eightbux”
    - pessimizer 4y ago
m3kw9 4y ago
It helps because the cost of impersonating wont make sense for a lot of people
- bombcar 4y ago
  This is a huge part of it. Shitposting for $0 is a lot different than shitposting for $8. Some will bust out the card to do so, but not many.
  - kube-system 4y ago
    The problem is that those who are willing to break out the $8 are probably the same ones who have the most to gain from it.
  - 8note 4y ago
    More importantly, $8 includes an identity check
benced 4y ago
Elon turning a $8 subscription into a culture war artifact doesn’t invalidate the idea of a subscribing for legitimacy altogether.
- notahacker 4y ago
  Agreed it doesn't completely invalidate it as a concept, but Elon turning the highest profile somewhat reliable implementation of an authenticity badge into a culture war artifact doesn't exactly bode well for it being a social media must-pay-for. The fact Facebook once aspired to be the platform where everyone used their real name and now can't be bothered to deactivate friendspamming sexbots without most users caring suggests that ordinary people won't exactly be queueing up to pay them $144 per annum because of their inherent trustworthiness as a verifier either. It'd probably work a bit on LinkedIn because of the nature of the user base and lots of people already expensing Premium accounts, but funnily enough I'm not sure LinkedIn actually has that much of a fake account problem...
  - ericmay 4y ago
    > but funnily enough I'm not sure LinkedIn actually has that much of a fake account problem... Oh it does for sure, unfortunately many people are more than happy to connect with anyone who wants to connect with them because “LinkedIn doesn’t have a fake account problem”. And many people post resumes, entire employment history, all professional social connections, etc. and so all you need to do is pretend to be a student of your targets alma mater and now you have all of that personal info with the click of a Connect button. I’ve noticed trends where someone would try to connect with me and they’d be connected with some acquaintances of mine, but not once have I ever heard of that person. Those types of accounts exist, are fake, and steal information. If you haven’t 1-1 met someone before in person or via actual business relationship you should definitely not connect with them on LinkedIn.
    - notahacker 4y ago
      Most of those accounts are actual people registered with their actual name using spamming tools (some of them LinkedIn approved) to connect with as many people as possible though, usually to boost the appearance of their personal profile and have as wide a possible audience for promotional messages they share rather than to circumvent LinkedIn's information paywalls. Spamming people loosely connected with your industry with what you're doing at work is, after all, LinkedIn's intended purpose...

anonuser123456 4y ago

Once/if consumers value identity this might change. If everyone on twitter were paying for verification, I think twitter would be much more interested in defending the sanctity of said system. As it stands, they are currently just trying to get the feature out there and get people to pay. Getting it deployed trumps making it perfect.

notahacker 4y ago
They already had a verification feature deployed which wasn't perfect but was reasonably strict. Then they debased it for a new revenue stream. I don't see them making the now that we've got a bunch of people paying for it, lets reduce our revenue by suddenly becoming strict on it again decision. Or people taking the badge more seriously now it just means someone subscribed to Twitter Blue

halJordan 4y ago

I get the "i hate Twitter/elon" attitude, but the truth is that the CA system has been dependent on pay-to-verify for some time now and despite whatever grievances you have against verisign or whoever it's brought us to today safely enough.

commandersaki 4y ago
The pay-to-verify is the reason why a significant chunk of the Internet didn't have HTTPS. It was the inception of free CAs like Lets Encrypt that made 90+% HTTPS penetration.
- xeromal 4y ago
  I'd argue laziness is the reason most of the internet didn't have HTTPS. Browsers putting a scary checkmark next to the site is what made it happen.
joe_the_user 4y ago
And the problem with pay for identity is you can buy other people's identities. The news was full impersonations right after Twitter initiated it's pay for blue check marks. That we don't here about it now may just be a matter that the news stopped caring. URL squatting was a problem for a long time - the decision that trademark holder could seize domains helped but a web address today isn't considered a solid identity at this point so "the system working" is a bit of an exaggeration. Also, I'd note the gp didn't bad-mouth Elon or Verisign so your comment is a kind of riding a trolly false accusation.
giaour 4y ago
I think the problem was not that Twitter started charging $8/month ago much as that they gave up the expensive-to-perform ID verification workflow that had been in place. The CA system, on the other hand, has more or less abandoned the expensive, manual "extended verification" process in favor of the zero marginal cost "domain verification" process. This switchover drove the cost of a new cert to $0 for almost all users. So I'm really not following your analogy, since Twitter gave up the workflow and started charging (aka, a cash grab), whereas CAs gave up charging and adopted a more efficient workflow (aka the expected behavior of efficient markets).
- biztos 4y ago
  Maybe Twitter Blue was a cash grab, but for me as a light user (and not a Blue) it’s way more transparent and sensible now. “Paid account with extra features” is just far easier to parse than “someone at Twitter thinks this person/company is both authentic and important.”
  - platz 4y ago
    100%
  - cachvico 4y ago
    But now (with Twitter) I can't trust anything I read without double-checking carefully it is not a fake account (and even then I cannot be sure). At least beforehand I was able to trust that Twitter has done the basic KYC. The Meta implementation therefore seems smarter (depends on gov ID).
    - throwntoday 4y ago
      Why did you ever trust anything on twitter without double-checking? Consider how much misinformation you have processed over the years because of too much faith in a platform to disseminate facts over fiction.
      - libraryatnight 4y ago

pessimizer 4y ago

> a symbol which had previously meant they'd attempted verification That's not what it meant. It was an award for being notable. $8 is a fee that you pay to get verified.

notahacker 4y ago
It was an award for being an authentic notable person or entity, on the basis that the notable people and entities were most likely to be parodied or faked. Now it's an award for people that pay up
- 300bps 4y ago
  It was an award for being an authentic notable person or entity Using an arbitrary and biased determinant of who is notable. https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2021/06/28/twitter-verification-blue-check-yashar-ali-kaivan-shroff https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2021/06/28/twitter-verifica...
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - palata 4y ago
    Maybe, but at least the verification seemed meaningful. And it feels like a meaningful verification doesn't generalise well: it's easy to pick a few people (arbitrarily) and truly verify them. But verifying millions of people... that's hard, unless you don't truly verify (in which case it's meaningless).
- bombcar 4y ago
  It started out as “this is who you expect it is” for things like Obama or Trump, then it became “this is a person who speaks with authority of some sort, listen to them” and now it is just “someone pays eightbux”
  - pessimizer 4y ago

m3kw9 4y ago

It helps because the cost of impersonating wont make sense for a lot of people

bombcar 4y ago
This is a huge part of it. Shitposting for $0 is a lot different than shitposting for $8. Some will bust out the card to do so, but not many.
- kube-system 4y ago
  The problem is that those who are willing to break out the $8 are probably the same ones who have the most to gain from it.
- 8note 4y ago
  More importantly, $8 includes an identity check

benced 4y ago

Elon turning a $8 subscription into a culture war artifact doesn’t invalidate the idea of a subscribing for legitimacy altogether.

notahacker 4y ago
Agreed it doesn't completely invalidate it as a concept, but Elon turning the highest profile somewhat reliable implementation of an authenticity badge into a culture war artifact doesn't exactly bode well for it being a social media must-pay-for. The fact Facebook once aspired to be the platform where everyone used their real name and now can't be bothered to deactivate friendspamming sexbots without most users caring suggests that ordinary people won't exactly be queueing up to pay them $144 per annum because of their inherent trustworthiness as a verifier either. It'd probably work a bit on LinkedIn because of the nature of the user base and lots of people already expensing Premium accounts, but funnily enough I'm not sure LinkedIn actually has that much of a fake account problem...
- ericmay 4y ago
  > but funnily enough I'm not sure LinkedIn actually has that much of a fake account problem... Oh it does for sure, unfortunately many people are more than happy to connect with anyone who wants to connect with them because “LinkedIn doesn’t have a fake account problem”. And many people post resumes, entire employment history, all professional social connections, etc. and so all you need to do is pretend to be a student of your targets alma mater and now you have all of that personal info with the click of a Connect button. I’ve noticed trends where someone would try to connect with me and they’d be connected with some acquaintances of mine, but not once have I ever heard of that person. Those types of accounts exist, are fake, and steal information. If you haven’t 1-1 met someone before in person or via actual business relationship you should definitely not connect with them on LinkedIn.
  - notahacker 4y ago
    Most of those accounts are actual people registered with their actual name using spamming tools (some of them LinkedIn approved) to connect with as many people as possible though, usually to boost the appearance of their personal profile and have as wide a possible audience for promotional messages they share rather than to circumvent LinkedIn's information paywalls. Spamming people loosely connected with your industry with what you're doing at work is, after all, LinkedIn's intended purpose...