| Title | Twitter: Our Blue Check Marks Aren't Just About "Verification" | |
| Date | Friday November 17 2017, @12:39PM | |
| Author | Fnord666 | |
| Topic | ||
| from the sometimes-a-cigar-is-just-a-cigar dept. | ||
Both mrpg and realDonaldTrump write in with stories about an update to Twitter's verification system.
A Twitter rules update rolled out on Wednesday to address the site's "verification" system, and it attached a new set of standards to any user whose account receives a "blue check mark."
Twitter's "verification" system is used to confirm accounts of celebrities and other accounts of "public interest." However, the feature has long straddled a blurry line between identity confirmation and "elite" user status, especially since verified accounts receive heightened visibility and perks such as content filters. That issue returned to the headlines last week when Twitter gave a blue check mark to white nationalist Jason Kessler. Kessler is best known as an organizer of the Unite The Right white-supremacist rally, but before then, he had racked up a significant record of online hate propagation, particularly with anti-Semitic rhetoric about "cultural Marxism."
"Twitter on Wednesday removed the 'verification' checkmarks from the accounts of a number of white nationalists and far-right activists -- in a move that critics say could have a chilling effect on free speech." http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2017/11/16/twitter-targets-white-nationalists-and-far-right-activists-in-de-verification-purge.html
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printed from SoylentNews, Twitter: Our Blue Check Marks Aren't Just About "Verification" on 2024-04-27 10:44:14