@atomicpoet@fediversenews as a former holder of a legacy blue check mark (I wrote key software twitter used in infrastructure)…
I think you are doing them quite a disservice. I would never give Musk money for twitter. And the blue check mark now means absolutely nothing other than you pay.
If it were just a means of confirming you are who you say you are, then many would have stuck with it.
But there’s zero actual verification now. So you can and do have impersonators with check marks
@lkanies@fediversenews Blue Checks were never entirely about verification. If that were the case, the service would be available to everyone. Notability is what made you qualified for a blue check, which is tied to status and clout.
On the other hand, account verification is available to everyone who uses Mastodon.
@atomicpoet@fediversenews yep. And I think that was a stupid decision by twitter. It hurt lots of people who needed the tools you could only get with verification (protection, spam mgmt, etc) but were not considered notable enough to get verified.
If Musk had just dropped any requirement for notability, I would have no complaints. But he also dropped any attempt at verification
@lkanies
To be clear, the original point that I was speaking on was regarding servers and environments catering to certain demographics. Such as BS giving preference towards celebrity.
@mentallyalex@atomicpoet@fediversenews ah, yeah, that’s a good point. Clubhouse certainly went for this hard, and it looked for a little bit like it might work out for them.
@lkanies I don't particularly like the model but I could at least understand it.
If a boutique popped up that provided those services to celebrities to help them feel safe, I wouldn't blame them. If they get here through their managements control that is fine with me.
The move should be finding ways to join the smaller flows into this flow, not the other way around.
That's exactly the thing I don't like. I want to talk about all sorts of topics with peers. I don't like celebrity worship. Platforms that explicitly cater to a celebrity worship model are not for me. I already dislike responding to the few celebrity posts we get here because they're invariably followed by hundreds of low-content replies.
It was more than that, though. He changed the blue check from something bestowed in recognition of status to something that symbolized desperation to buy status, which is never cool.
@atomicpoet@fediversenews I have a lot of sympathy for true celebrities and “notable” people. They’re constant targets for harassment, identity theft, and impersonation. Twitter’s blue checks were a very elegant solution to that problem. If Mastodon wants to court and maintain those people something similar is needed.
@cbroome@atomicpoet@fediversenews it's pretty fool proof, most of these influencers and content creators own some sort of website, whether that be too distribute merch or a custom domain on a link tree, they own at least one. And if they're publicly pushing their merch sites in their link, trees are posted everywhere, then that's a pretty good way to identify authenticity.
@cbroome@atomicpoet@fediversenews I don't think Mastodon needs something similar, the rel me check is perfectly sufficient. It would also be better because it will be attached to domains they own. It could literally be a custom domain linktree.
@cbroome@atomicpoet Everyone having a website can verify themselves. I do not think that celebrities do not/cannot easily set up a website themselves. It might seem like a burden, but you get to verify yourself (in a valid way) and not depend on an external party to get verified:
@atomicpoet counter idea: a Mastodon instance only for “notable people.” As long as the people are not notable for their toxicity, it would boost the Fediverse’s visibility and benefit those who miss following them on here.
@andresmh@atomicpoet Interesting idea, but it seems a bit counter to the ethos of the software and protocol, and also a little counter to part of what made Twitter popular in the first place — celebs and proles on equal footing (for a minute or two)
@atomicpoet@fediversenews Legacy checkmarks didn't want the new checkmarks less because "rubes" got it, and more because it became synonymous with "I will pay 8 dollars for nothing", though.
The mark didn't truly become poison until they allegedly got rid of legacy checkmarks 12 days ago (and started lying about who paid for it).
@atomicpoet It's like the paid checkmarks were a weird cargo cult of clout, trying to copy the shape without understanding the form, and then the people who had the clout were suddenly clumped with the cargo cultists.
@Reil There was blowback as soon as paid Blue Checks became a thing. But yes, they became radioactive as soon as the “legacy” version was supposedly sunset.
The blowback was largely because paid blue checks did not require verification that you were that person or company, and so opened the door (sometimes hilariously) to imitators and (more seriously) to misrepresentation.
I'm sure a few "verified" folks' noses were out of joint because their status was no longer selective, but the problem wasn't that "jane q. public" could get a blue check, but that someone saying they were "jqp" could get a blue check just by paying $8.
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