Is This Another Squeal from a Twitter Dependent User?
November 8, 2022
“The Ridiculous But Important Twitter Verification Debate, Explained” strikes me as another bleat from the old Twitter faction. The new and musk-scented tweeter has a revolutionary idea. If you are not following the “verification” issue; here’s the cited article’s presentation of the idea:
Musk says paid users would get a verification badge, and their tweets would get priority in replies, mentions, and searches; they’d also get to post longer videos, and they’d see fewer ads (but they’d still see ads). It probably shouldn’t even be called a “verification” badge anymore, either, as identity verification reportedly may not be necessary to get one (the money, it seems, is plenty and enough). And the blue check would no longer be a way to mitigate the spread of disinformation, as it was originally designed to be. Depending on who is willing to give Elon Musk $96 a year and what they have to say, it may well amplify it.
The old verification system, I learned from the write up:
… is not the status symbol people seem to think it is. It’s part of Twitter’s recognition that journalists are some of its most prolific users, that a lot of people use Twitter to keep up on the news those journalists tweet, and that it’s therefore important to all parties if they know whose word they can rely on.
Imagine. Now anyone willing to pay the Elon will receive a check. The “old” Twitter check mark was special. I noted this statement:
There are currently about 425,000 verified accounts, according to @verified. That’s enough for the blue check to no longer be the exclusive special symbol it was once seen as, but it’s also a small percentage of Twitter’s total user base, which Twitter has said is about 240 million monetizable (as in, actual people and not bots) daily active users.
This reminds me of Groucho Marx’ alleged quote about the value of a membership for a snazzy golf club: “I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member.”
I think Twitter is an unselective country club, but the check was something really special. But the tweeter thing is a relatively small service compared to Facebook or the Telegram Ukraine groups. I think buying a tweeter check mark is a way to make a small amount of money paid for a black hole sucking down money. That which was perceived to be special is now for sale, just like a Tesla without a wait list.
What about verification? Why not use false personas and scout around for one one those Voyager Labs-type intelware systems. Some permit the use of persona templates so that an identity can be deployed, verified, and used to interact with either humanoids or other software systems. Online verification is tough. Do you need evidence? Check out the lengths online services are going to determine that the entity logging in is actually the “real” registered entry. By the way, some verification methods required on certain ghost sites are like math problems in a Differential Calculus class.
In the era of dinobabies, if one published an article in a magazine, that article represented a writer, probably a hard charging English major, and a published (either loved like Barry Bingham senior or hated like the charming Mr. Hearst). Thus, if a reader were offended, there was, in theory, a throat into which one’s legal eagles could sink their talons. In the largely unregulated digital space, anonymity, false personas, content robots, and mixes of methods are ghosts. Legal eagles want to drop from the sky, seize their prey, and empty either wallets or blood vessels. Big disappointment: Software robots can be operated by an enterprising programmer in Romania. What legal eagle wants to jet to Bucharest and contemplate the patron saint of lawyers – Vlad the Impaler? Very few I surmise.
The anonymity thing is important to those who want to become a star, a thought leader, a dominant force in less than 200 words, and an influencer. Imagine this: A “real” journalist suggesting to a CIA professional that the real journalist could become a spy. That’s a great idea. The type of person who craves fame in Tweeterville wants those with a check to be special. If anyone can buy a check, then the value of the digital fame chaser goes down.
I don’t have a dog in the Fail Whale world. It is fun to identify the noises made by those who want to catch the Elon bird’s song which sounds a great deal like musical motifs from Mozart’s Requiem in D Minor.
Stephen E Arnold, November 8, 2022
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