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It is exactly the opposite. The “verification” verifies nothing other than having a credit card and 8 USD to spend. There already have been “verified” accounts

It is exactly the opposite. The “verification” verifies nothing other than having a credit card and 8 USD to spend. There already have been “verified” accounts with blue checkmarks impersonating the NY government, governor and other people. [1] All this will do is push these impersonating accounts higher in the feed than the actual legit accounts. It’s an easy and cheap way for fake accounts to gain access to a larger audience. [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/fake-accounts-pop-twitter-legacy-blue-check-removals-rcna80833 https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/fake-accounts-pop-twitter-legac...

emilsedgh 4y ago
Maybe the two things should be different? Blue checkmark for official accounts, but to get boosted you need to pay up?
- Xylakant 4y ago
  Paying a tiny sum to get boosted is still a shortcut for grifters. Paying for the effort to do actual verification would be an option, but that’s not what’s happening here.
p-e-w 4y ago
> The “verification” verifies nothing other than having a credit card and 8 USD to spend. Indeed. That's why it's effective for reducing spam, since spammers who run thousands of bot accounts aren't going to verify each of them unless their spamming activity generates at least $8 per account. Most spamming activities generate far less revenue, so those become unprofitable, and the overall amount of spam goes down.
- Xylakant 4y ago
  Future will show, but I believe you’re wrong about this. It’s still possible to create bots, but now, for a mere 8 USD, I can have it boosted to top, above legit human accounts. This may reduce the amount of cheap spam, but it’s a godsend for any actor that is for example trying to influence public opinion. For a mere 80000 USD I could have a verified bot army with 10000 accounts drowning out a lot of legitimate conversations. Or push advertising. Or I could go all the way and just use stolen credit cards.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - kfarr 4y ago
    In a sense it’s legitimizing bots as long as they pay
  - shortcake27 4y ago
    > For a mere 80000 USD I could have a verified bot army with 10000 accounts drowning out a lot of legitimate conversations That’s a different problem. The parent is referring to the cheap high-volume spam/scams that have proliferated every corner of the free internet. These only work because they’re extremely cheap. There’s a reason your email inbox receives 10,000x more spam than your physical mailbox.
    - mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
      If a scam can't even make $8 per account it's pretty much doomed to failure anyway. Think about it.
  - kjksf 4y ago
    Paid spam accounts are removed as well, which you left out of your analysis. Buying an account doesn't give you un-suspendable account. All spam detection techniques are applied to paid accounts and they are removed as well. This not only raises the cost but difficulty. Just having money is not enough. Detecting 10+ payments from the same credit card is trivial. There aren't infinite amounts of valid credit cards or Apple accounts to be used for verification.
    - olog-hai 4y ago
      Spam detection at Twitter is horrendous. Search results for many crypto and stock ticker symbols (or cashtags like $SOFI) are deluged with Discord links for shady trading groups endlessly trying to rope in paid subscribers. If you select "top" search results, you'll see much less spam but stale tweets. "Latest" yields tons of spam. They've been tweeting with the same phrases like "don't miss the next move in a few hours" and "top analyst price target" for years, presumably because it's never been a priority to get rid of them.
- slg 4y ago
  Was spam ever that much of a problem on Twitter? Stupid humans were always a much bigger detriment in my experience and this move disproportionately boosts stupid humans.
  - saagarjha 4y ago
    They were if you were a billionaire named Elon Musk whose likeness was constantly being used to promote crypto scams to your gullible followers.
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
  $8 won't stop the really bad actors, just the trolls. And impersonating someone could easily make a lot more than $8 in a very short time.

emilsedgh 4y ago

Maybe the two things should be different? Blue checkmark for official accounts, but to get boosted you need to pay up?

Xylakant 4y ago
Paying a tiny sum to get boosted is still a shortcut for grifters. Paying for the effort to do actual verification would be an option, but that’s not what’s happening here.

p-e-w 4y ago

> The “verification” verifies nothing other than having a credit card and 8 USD to spend. Indeed. That's why it's effective for reducing spam, since spammers who run thousands of bot accounts aren't going to verify each of them unless their spamming activity generates at least $8 per account. Most spamming activities generate far less revenue, so those become unprofitable, and the overall amount of spam goes down.

Xylakant 4y ago
Future will show, but I believe you’re wrong about this. It’s still possible to create bots, but now, for a mere 8 USD, I can have it boosted to top, above legit human accounts. This may reduce the amount of cheap spam, but it’s a godsend for any actor that is for example trying to influence public opinion. For a mere 80000 USD I could have a verified bot army with 10000 accounts drowning out a lot of legitimate conversations. Or push advertising. Or I could go all the way and just use stolen credit cards.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- kfarr 4y ago
  In a sense it’s legitimizing bots as long as they pay
- shortcake27 4y ago
  > For a mere 80000 USD I could have a verified bot army with 10000 accounts drowning out a lot of legitimate conversations That’s a different problem. The parent is referring to the cheap high-volume spam/scams that have proliferated every corner of the free internet. These only work because they’re extremely cheap. There’s a reason your email inbox receives 10,000x more spam than your physical mailbox.
  - mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
    If a scam can't even make $8 per account it's pretty much doomed to failure anyway. Think about it.
- kjksf 4y ago
  Paid spam accounts are removed as well, which you left out of your analysis. Buying an account doesn't give you un-suspendable account. All spam detection techniques are applied to paid accounts and they are removed as well. This not only raises the cost but difficulty. Just having money is not enough. Detecting 10+ payments from the same credit card is trivial. There aren't infinite amounts of valid credit cards or Apple accounts to be used for verification.
  - olog-hai 4y ago
    Spam detection at Twitter is horrendous. Search results for many crypto and stock ticker symbols (or cashtags like $SOFI) are deluged with Discord links for shady trading groups endlessly trying to rope in paid subscribers. If you select "top" search results, you'll see much less spam but stale tweets. "Latest" yields tons of spam. They've been tweeting with the same phrases like "don't miss the next move in a few hours" and "top analyst price target" for years, presumably because it's never been a priority to get rid of them.
slg 4y ago
Was spam ever that much of a problem on Twitter? Stupid humans were always a much bigger detriment in my experience and this move disproportionately boosts stupid humans.
- saagarjha 4y ago
  They were if you were a billionaire named Elon Musk whose likeness was constantly being used to promote crypto scams to your gullible followers.
mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
$8 won't stop the really bad actors, just the trolls. And impersonating someone could easily make a lot more than $8 in a very short time.