Twitter verification isn’t about clout – it’s about preventing impersonation. And it’s not to protect its users as much as it is to protect the company from being sued by famous people who inevitably will get impersonated online. In fact, the system was introduced after baseball player Tony La Russa sued Twitter over fake accounts pretending to be him. The verification process involved reaching out to accounts that were “authentic, notable and active”, and checkmarks indicated Twitter had gone through an actual verification process to confirm that the person was who they said they were.
For some reason, Sweeney believes that people denouncing the removal of an actual verification process makes them the equivalent of junior high school bullies, intentionally using it as a way to wall out non-elites. I find it astonishing that he believes turning a necessary safety measure into a purchasable commodity is “democratising it”, and that he hasn’t considered the very real threats of people impersonating celebrities, politicians and companies. Twitter Blue doesn’t actually verify these people, as a Washington Post columnist proved. Theycreated an account impersonating a US senatorwhich was only suspended after the story was published. In response to the actual senator tweeting about the article and asking for answers from Musk about how it was allowed to happen at all, Musk said,“Perhaps it is because your real account sounds like a parody?”
That aside, it’s just very silly for a grown man, again, a multi-billionaire, to say with his entire chest on Twitter that a campaign to devalue a money-grab by a company’s owner is about being cool or maintaining a position as part of the in-group. It’s not. Choosing to disavow #BlockTheBlue is basically saying you want to pay for the privilege of making content for Elon Musk. That’s his choice, but it’s ridiculous all around for him and others to think that Twitter is now ‘meritocratic’. The blue checkmark means nothing anymore. It has no value. Nothing has been democratised.
Anyway, Sweeney is getting ratioed nonstop on the thread he made, and for good reason. Verification wasn’t perfect, but it had a purpose and it served that purpose. It helped to mitigate the risk of disinformation and scams, and now there’s nothing. Thanks, Elon!
