8 ms·

Blue checks on X deceiving users into engaging with harmful material, EU says

37 points by vinnyglennon 2y ago

russdpale 2y ago
No shit.
dogleash 2y ago
lol, boomers acting like bluechecks were trustworthy even before elon started selling them.
- cowboylowrez 2y ago
  yeah checkmarks used to imply a certain something, get off my lawn lol. still, if I need to read a twitter post from an influential twitter user, I'm sure I can find it on 4chan.
oldpersonintx 2y ago
[dead]
anxtr 2y ago
[flagged]
- sjsdaiuasgdia 2y ago
  Blue checks never made claims about the information accounts post, only that the owner of the account has been verified to be who they say they are. Which is still a good thing in the face of misinformation because then you can more confidently say "person [x] said [thing] and I believe that to be a lie." While they weren't perfect before, the checks are now entirely useless for that purpose.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
daghamm 2y ago
Twitter is a dumpsterfire. If you still choose to stay in it, you shouldn't complain about the smell. I think the main problem is the organisations (such as various municipalities in EU) that use twitter as an official communication channel, which forces citizens to be there too.
- 542354234235 2y ago
  The fact that it is an official comms channel for a lot of organizations doesn't seems to square with it being something people can just leave. If people need to get official communications through a dumpster fire, they should absolutely be complaining.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- chx 2y ago
  yeah that bellingcat affair recently was really something
- Ylpertnodi 2y ago
  >various municipalities... Examples?
mpalmer 2y ago
This would seem to be entirely about how different parties view blue checks. There's no law that says a blue check next to a name comes with any kind of guarantee. Unless X has language somewhere about what "verified" actually connotes beyond the simplest interpretation of the word, I don't see what the action is here.
- Krasnol 2y ago
  The action results from the fact that the blue check used to mean something.
  - dragontamer 2y ago
    It still does mean something. The fact that cryptoscams and other such people are using blue-checkmarks to trick others today on Twitter is proof of the dark pattern. What is the point of a "verification" system that lets scammers in? Obviously the scammers find the $8/month blue checkmark to be worthy enough to spend. There was that one Russian Bot account people were making fun of that ran out of ChatGPT tokens with a blue checkmark as well. So you're getting bots and scammers in on the "verified" mark (and Twitter is literally profiting from them by taking their money). I think that's worthy to call attention in some countries. EU doesn't like this kind of stuff for example. So I'm not surprised to see EU action on this situation alone.
    - sunaookami 2y ago
      >The fact that cryptoscams and other such people are using blue-checkmarks to trick others today on Twitter is proof of the dark pattern That already has happened way before Musk took over. Nothing changed. At least now people are more wary that blue checkmark doesn't mean "I can trust this user".
      - dragontamer 2y ago
        No. Today cryptocoin scams have blue checkmarks when before they didn't. That's why 'Elon Musk airdrop cryptocoin' message is basically today's Nigerian Prince scam. If you can get a blue checkmark for just $8 and call yourself Elon Musk (or any other celebrity), you'll easily make more money on the scam than you spend on a throwaway account.
mypastself 2y ago
> “deceives” users into believing such accounts are safe when “there is evidence of motivated malicious actors abusing” the check mark system In what way do they deceive and abuse? The article doesn’t say. > a number of high-profile public figures distanced themselves from verification on X > Hashtags such as #BlockTheBlueChecks trended on X in the backlash, while several celebrities decided to leave the platform If the public perception has indeed turned against the blue checks, surely there’s no longer a reputation to uphold. What’s X’s legal obligation here?
sdsd 2y ago
A year ago I was listening to philosophytube do his interpretation of Julius Caesar's speech about The Conspiracy Of Catiline, which you can find somewhere in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8NVy00tfdI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8NVy00tfdI. Who didn't praise the EU when they were the first government to hit back at these Big Tech psychopath surveillance machines? And yet, as the years go by, it seems like we've seen a power struggle in which tech's vision of its own power became inflated, and the state reminded it of its place. My enthusiasm for the EU (which once looked like a a constellation of yellow stars to guide the world through the stormy oceans of illiberalism towards a freer tomorrow under president picard or kirk) has waned substantially. Are they a land that overcame the struggles that plagued my homeland (TEXAS), or were they simply an artificial disneyland who's paperthin democracies veiled near totalitarian control by a foreign empire? I feel this viscerally now that I live in LatAm and can see so transparently the influence of the state dept and its NGOs brewing a counter elite. It even feels odd to think of me and the people here as "being from different countries". Aren't we all Natons, from NATO, loyal to our shared Progress flag and social democratic values, governed by the same managerial elites who go to the same schools, speak the same language, etc? A Gaul and a Jew are in some sense both Roman, during the second century. I do believe someone was confused by a blue checkmark scammer. I also do believe that has nothing to do with what the "EU says" in this instance. But I'm probably wrong. I was 100% all-in for hilldawg in 2016, Biden for 2024, essentially I never predict things correctly. I've even thought of trying to monetize my bad political instincts by joining one of those crypto prediction markets and betting on the opposite of whatever feels certain to me.
paulgb 2y ago
Here's the official press release, which has more details than the Irish Times article: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_3761 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_... In particular, this is the complaint relating to "verified" status: > Since anyone can subscribe to obtain such a “verified” status, it negatively affects users' ability to make free and informed decisions about the authenticity of the accounts and the content they interact with. There is evidence of motivated malicious actors abusing the “verified account” to deceive users. I actually think there is some merit to this. Verified used to mean what it sounds like: the identity was verified to match the account. The verification process seems a lot more lax post-Elon. I'm fine with that, but then they shouldn't call it "verified".
- doe_eyes 2y ago
  That's a pretty charitable interpretation of what they used to mean. You and I couldn't get "verified". The only exception for mere mortals was having a good friend at Twitter to skirt the eligibility criteria. But in general, the checkmarks a status symbol for the cultural elites: if you have a checkmark, you're an Important Person. They were reserved for celebrities, politicians, and so on. This was a dumpster fire of Twitter's own doing. It was clearly what irked Elon - and why he sought to rob the "checkmarks" of their status symbol by commoditizing it, rather than coming up with some new symbol for paying customers. This was childish, but so is the EU decision here. I doubt there's any real confusion about what the checkmarks mean today, and I don't like the idea that just because they were used in a particular way before, a private platform is forever bound by that.
  - paulgb 2y ago
    > This was a dumpster fire of Twitter's own doing. 100% agreed. I was no fan of the old system. But regardless of the arbitrary criteria for being eligible for verification, at least they did attempt to verify that the account matched the identity of its operator at the point in time that it was verified. There were stores of verified accounts falling into the wrong hands, but AFAIK there weren't cases of twitter incorrectly verifying an account belonging to someone else. > I don't like the idea that just because they were used in a particular way before, a private platform is forever bound by that. I'm not just talking about inertia, they literally use the copy "this account is verified" on my profile, today, when they have done nothing to verify my identity. There are levels of subjectivity over what is considered "verified", but to me it implies at least some basic attempt at identity verification.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
mullingitover 2y ago
These are the same types of issues that took down Parler. Now that Twitter is has completed the transformation into Parler 2.0, this type of legal trouble will just keep piling up. It's a natural result of the (mis)management philosophy of its operators.
nerdjon 2y ago
This seems like a stretch? The blue checkmark is really nothing more than, I paid for this. It gives you certain benefits on the system and it does amplify your voice. But is that really any different than ads? All for criticism of how much X's reputation has been destroyed and a lot of the choices Elon has made, but this one... it doesn't make any sense to me.
- dragontamer 2y ago
  When you saw a Blue Checkmark next to "Stephen King" in 2021, you knew it was the author Stephen King. When you see a Blue Checkmark next to "Elon Musk" in 2024, you know he's a shitposter who is trying to sell you the most recent cryptocoin scam. There are people who are unaware of the difference between 2021 and 2024. As evidenced by this entire discussion.
  - nerdjon 2y ago
    Did Elon Musk not have a blue checkmark before he bought twitter? I was under the impression that all the verified checkmark did was prove who you were. Nothing to do with trustworthiness of the content being posted, just that this account belongs to this person they are claiming to be.
    - dragontamer 2y ago
      The point of a blue checkmark was not only to verify people on Twitter, but also to play to the egos of celebrities to push them to post more often on Twitter. Both of these goals have been destroyed by the $8/month plan. Anyone can get a blue checkmark. Anyone can claim anything on their account today. Celebrities have no more reason to interact with Twitter as much as they did years ago, and the languishing user base makes this all evident. I'm not surprised that the $8/month plan is mostly used by scammers who are tricking people who don't understand the difference between 2021 and 2024 Twitter (likely the elderly or other such people who still place trust in the old system). > Did Elon Musk not have a blue checkmark before he bought twitter? The problem is that you can _today_ get a blue checkmark while claiming to be anyone. The huge number of impersonators on Twitter should be evidence of that.
cowboylowrez 2y ago
I can verify that x is banned where I work, course I work at home heh heh heh 127.0.0.1 x.com 127.0.0.1 twitter.com
- stvltvs 2y ago
  That's going to break 3rd party websites that use platform.twitter.com, but whatever floats your boat.
  - cowboylowrez 2y ago
    yeah the webs pretty broken, I'm thinking eventually it'll be too hard for me to use.
  - daghamm 2y ago
    Serious question: are there any legitimate uses of this domain, for people who don't use twitter?
    - cowboylowrez 2y ago
      probably many sites have to fetch the latest "twitter/x" icon to display the "twitter/x" share button
chuckSu 2y ago
[dead]
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
CaptWillard 2y ago
Government agencies had a sophisticated system of censorship and propaganda on Twitter before Elon bought it and shut them down. This is nothing more than a naked attempt to regain that control or at least throttle the flow of inconvenient information. Very soviet. If you're one of the many govt/NGO types on this site, it's a good time to ask yourself, "Are we the baddies?"
ChrisArchitect 2y ago
[dupe] Some more discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40947128 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40947128

37 points by vinnyglennon 2y ago

russdpale 2y ago

No shit.

dogleash 2y ago

lol, boomers acting like bluechecks were trustworthy even before elon started selling them.

cowboylowrez 2y ago
yeah checkmarks used to imply a certain something, get off my lawn lol. still, if I need to read a twitter post from an influential twitter user, I'm sure I can find it on 4chan.

oldpersonintx 2y ago

[dead]

anxtr 2y ago

[flagged]

sjsdaiuasgdia 2y ago
Blue checks never made claims about the information accounts post, only that the owner of the account has been verified to be who they say they are. Which is still a good thing in the face of misinformation because then you can more confidently say "person [x] said [thing] and I believe that to be a lie." While they weren't perfect before, the checks are now entirely useless for that purpose.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

daghamm 2y ago

Twitter is a dumpsterfire. If you still choose to stay in it, you shouldn't complain about the smell. I think the main problem is the organisations (such as various municipalities in EU) that use twitter as an official communication channel, which forces citizens to be there too.

542354234235 2y ago
The fact that it is an official comms channel for a lot of organizations doesn't seems to square with it being something people can just leave. If people need to get official communications through a dumpster fire, they should absolutely be complaining.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
chx 2y ago
yeah that bellingcat affair recently was really something
Ylpertnodi 2y ago
>various municipalities... Examples?

mpalmer 2y ago

This would seem to be entirely about how different parties view blue checks. There's no law that says a blue check next to a name comes with any kind of guarantee. Unless X has language somewhere about what "verified" actually connotes beyond the simplest interpretation of the word, I don't see what the action is here.

Krasnol 2y ago
The action results from the fact that the blue check used to mean something.
- dragontamer 2y ago
  It still does mean something. The fact that cryptoscams and other such people are using blue-checkmarks to trick others today on Twitter is proof of the dark pattern. What is the point of a "verification" system that lets scammers in? Obviously the scammers find the $8/month blue checkmark to be worthy enough to spend. There was that one Russian Bot account people were making fun of that ran out of ChatGPT tokens with a blue checkmark as well. So you're getting bots and scammers in on the "verified" mark (and Twitter is literally profiting from them by taking their money). I think that's worthy to call attention in some countries. EU doesn't like this kind of stuff for example. So I'm not surprised to see EU action on this situation alone.
  - sunaookami 2y ago
    >The fact that cryptoscams and other such people are using blue-checkmarks to trick others today on Twitter is proof of the dark pattern That already has happened way before Musk took over. Nothing changed. At least now people are more wary that blue checkmark doesn't mean "I can trust this user".
    - dragontamer 2y ago
      No. Today cryptocoin scams have blue checkmarks when before they didn't. That's why 'Elon Musk airdrop cryptocoin' message is basically today's Nigerian Prince scam. If you can get a blue checkmark for just $8 and call yourself Elon Musk (or any other celebrity), you'll easily make more money on the scam than you spend on a throwaway account.

mypastself 2y ago

> “deceives” users into believing such accounts are safe when “there is evidence of motivated malicious actors abusing” the check mark system In what way do they deceive and abuse? The article doesn’t say. > a number of high-profile public figures distanced themselves from verification on X > Hashtags such as #BlockTheBlueChecks trended on X in the backlash, while several celebrities decided to leave the platform If the public perception has indeed turned against the blue checks, surely there’s no longer a reputation to uphold. What’s X’s legal obligation here?

sdsd 2y ago

A year ago I was listening to philosophytube do his interpretation of Julius Caesar's speech about The Conspiracy Of Catiline, which you can find somewhere in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8NVy00tfdI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8NVy00tfdI. Who didn't praise the EU when they were the first government to hit back at these Big Tech psychopath surveillance machines? And yet, as the years go by, it seems like we've seen a power struggle in which tech's vision of its own power became inflated, and the state reminded it of its place. My enthusiasm for the EU (which once looked like a a constellation of yellow stars to guide the world through the stormy oceans of illiberalism towards a freer tomorrow under president picard or kirk) has waned substantially. Are they a land that overcame the struggles that plagued my homeland (TEXAS), or were they simply an artificial disneyland who's paperthin democracies veiled near totalitarian control by a foreign empire? I feel this viscerally now that I live in LatAm and can see so transparently the influence of the state dept and its NGOs brewing a counter elite. It even feels odd to think of me and the people here as "being from different countries". Aren't we all Natons, from NATO, loyal to our shared Progress flag and social democratic values, governed by the same managerial elites who go to the same schools, speak the same language, etc? A Gaul and a Jew are in some sense both Roman, during the second century. I do believe someone was confused by a blue checkmark scammer. I also do believe that has nothing to do with what the "EU says" in this instance. But I'm probably wrong. I was 100% all-in for hilldawg in 2016, Biden for 2024, essentially I never predict things correctly. I've even thought of trying to monetize my bad political instincts by joining one of those crypto prediction markets and betting on the opposite of whatever feels certain to me.

paulgb 2y ago

Here's the official press release, which has more details than the Irish Times article: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_3761 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_... In particular, this is the complaint relating to "verified" status: > Since anyone can subscribe to obtain such a “verified” status, it negatively affects users' ability to make free and informed decisions about the authenticity of the accounts and the content they interact with. There is evidence of motivated malicious actors abusing the “verified account” to deceive users. I actually think there is some merit to this. Verified used to mean what it sounds like: the identity was verified to match the account. The verification process seems a lot more lax post-Elon. I'm fine with that, but then they shouldn't call it "verified".

doe_eyes 2y ago
That's a pretty charitable interpretation of what they used to mean. You and I couldn't get "verified". The only exception for mere mortals was having a good friend at Twitter to skirt the eligibility criteria. But in general, the checkmarks a status symbol for the cultural elites: if you have a checkmark, you're an Important Person. They were reserved for celebrities, politicians, and so on. This was a dumpster fire of Twitter's own doing. It was clearly what irked Elon - and why he sought to rob the "checkmarks" of their status symbol by commoditizing it, rather than coming up with some new symbol for paying customers. This was childish, but so is the EU decision here. I doubt there's any real confusion about what the checkmarks mean today, and I don't like the idea that just because they were used in a particular way before, a private platform is forever bound by that.
- paulgb 2y ago
  > This was a dumpster fire of Twitter's own doing. 100% agreed. I was no fan of the old system. But regardless of the arbitrary criteria for being eligible for verification, at least they did attempt to verify that the account matched the identity of its operator at the point in time that it was verified. There were stores of verified accounts falling into the wrong hands, but AFAIK there weren't cases of twitter incorrectly verifying an account belonging to someone else. > I don't like the idea that just because they were used in a particular way before, a private platform is forever bound by that. I'm not just talking about inertia, they literally use the copy "this account is verified" on my profile, today, when they have done nothing to verify my identity. There are levels of subjectivity over what is considered "verified", but to me it implies at least some basic attempt at identity verification.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

mullingitover 2y ago

These are the same types of issues that took down Parler. Now that Twitter is has completed the transformation into Parler 2.0, this type of legal trouble will just keep piling up. It's a natural result of the (mis)management philosophy of its operators.

nerdjon 2y ago

This seems like a stretch? The blue checkmark is really nothing more than, I paid for this. It gives you certain benefits on the system and it does amplify your voice. But is that really any different than ads? All for criticism of how much X's reputation has been destroyed and a lot of the choices Elon has made, but this one... it doesn't make any sense to me.

dragontamer 2y ago
When you saw a Blue Checkmark next to "Stephen King" in 2021, you knew it was the author Stephen King. When you see a Blue Checkmark next to "Elon Musk" in 2024, you know he's a shitposter who is trying to sell you the most recent cryptocoin scam. There are people who are unaware of the difference between 2021 and 2024. As evidenced by this entire discussion.
- nerdjon 2y ago
  Did Elon Musk not have a blue checkmark before he bought twitter? I was under the impression that all the verified checkmark did was prove who you were. Nothing to do with trustworthiness of the content being posted, just that this account belongs to this person they are claiming to be.
  - dragontamer 2y ago
    The point of a blue checkmark was not only to verify people on Twitter, but also to play to the egos of celebrities to push them to post more often on Twitter. Both of these goals have been destroyed by the $8/month plan. Anyone can get a blue checkmark. Anyone can claim anything on their account today. Celebrities have no more reason to interact with Twitter as much as they did years ago, and the languishing user base makes this all evident. I'm not surprised that the $8/month plan is mostly used by scammers who are tricking people who don't understand the difference between 2021 and 2024 Twitter (likely the elderly or other such people who still place trust in the old system). > Did Elon Musk not have a blue checkmark before he bought twitter? The problem is that you can _today_ get a blue checkmark while claiming to be anyone. The huge number of impersonators on Twitter should be evidence of that.

cowboylowrez 2y ago

I can verify that x is banned where I work, course I work at home heh heh heh 127.0.0.1 x.com 127.0.0.1 twitter.com

stvltvs 2y ago
That's going to break 3rd party websites that use platform.twitter.com, but whatever floats your boat.
- cowboylowrez 2y ago
  yeah the webs pretty broken, I'm thinking eventually it'll be too hard for me to use.
- daghamm 2y ago
  Serious question: are there any legitimate uses of this domain, for people who don't use twitter?
  - cowboylowrez 2y ago
    probably many sites have to fetch the latest "twitter/x" icon to display the "twitter/x" share button

chuckSu 2y ago

[dead]

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

CaptWillard 2y ago

Government agencies had a sophisticated system of censorship and propaganda on Twitter before Elon bought it and shut them down. This is nothing more than a naked attempt to regain that control or at least throttle the flow of inconvenient information. Very soviet. If you're one of the many govt/NGO types on this site, it's a good time to ask yourself, "Are we the baddies?"

ChrisArchitect 2y ago

[dupe] Some more discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40947128 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40947128