1650

I’m not saying it’s a good plan, just that it’s (probably) the plan. Elon has been talking about moving to a subs based model for months. Twitter has been arbitrarily limiting the number of verified accounts, there’s no reason for them to do that if it’s a primary revenue driver.

1651

According to some reporting, yes. Per The Verge:

1652

I imagine they’ll start to ruin it for the rest of us eventually, but why doesn’t everyone remotely tech savvy use a 3rd party twitter client? You see a purely chronological stream of posts, no ads, no algorithm, and only people who you follow. Seems way better than Twitter Blue, and you just buy it once. I paid $5 for Fenix 2 on Android several years ago.

As for verification, some people I follow are blue checks, some aren’t. Other than I guess knowing it’s not a fake account (which I would suss out pretty fast anyway) I don’t see the point.

1653

They bought and killed off the best one (TweetDeck). All of the good, feature competitive third party clients I looked into were more or less dead because of some API changes that limited their userbase and I didn’t grab a slot in time.

Instead of continuing to look and try to make something work, I stopped tweeting and mostly interact with the platform via shared links.

1654

“latest” mode (plus an ad blocker) also does this.

1656

An interesting point:

Twitter’s argument might be: “Now there’s a transparent method to getting verified.”

The lawyers representing a plaintiff once there are blue-checkmark accounts that are clearly spoofing/impersonating famous persons, brands, news outlets, etc. is the crux of the original LaRussa suit: indistinguish-ability from the genuine person or brand or news source, which might now be even more greatly exacerbated by the presence of a blue checkmark.

I’m imagining the first blue-checkmark Disney characters on twitter and the exciting fun that Elon’s new Twitter legal team will have engaging with the always easy-going, laid back lawyers who protect IP over at Big Mouse.

1657

I don’t think people understand how verification works though, you can’t “verify” a character unless you own the IP. Same with actual accounts, you have to have ID to prove you are the person you say you are on Twitter.

You can’t just pay 20 bucks and get to impersonate who-ever you want. If you get verified, you have sent in your own Address, Phone, Photo ID etc. So, if you use that to fake being someone else, they can point the nice lawyers to all of the personal info you gave Twitter.

It certainly will happen that people will get verified faking someone’s ID, but that is identity theft and fraud, and I am sure that will happily be settled in court. Twitter has built their verification system to protect themselves from lawsuits, I would expect whatever iteration comes next will continue to maintain that legal protection.

There is some weird thought that “anybody” can get a blue checkmark. That isn’t the case, if they continue to keep with their current requirements of proof of ID. You will still need to provide ID to get verified.

1658

I send in proof of my ID to get my account – @goofyguy – verified.

Then as soon as it’s verified, I change the name (but not the account) to Goofy from Walt Disney. And anyone who visits my twitter page sees that Goofy From Walt Disney is “@goofyguy”. Remember, there are TWO visible names associated with Twitter accounts. The “name” in bold, that appears for everyone, and the actual account name that isn’t bolded.

Good luck with that.

1659

No shit, this already happens now, mostly with verified people getting hacked.

If you are giving Twitter your ID and address, and you are going to go on to commit fraud…

Very smart move.

1660

Given how half baked this entire initiative is - plus the massive amount of debt Twitter now has to service - part of the speculation is that the only thing that really matters for the new combined Blue + verification program is your 20 bucks a month.

1661

I would fully expect it to be worse, because Elon is heading it up, and they are forcing them to rush it.

I assume current verification is all done by people, with actual human beings reviewing ID’s and paperwork. It is super strict presently.

If the system continues as it has, allowing people to pay to get verified won’t increase the amount of scam accounts much, especially if they keep controls as tight as they are now.

But I also expect Elon to try to remove the human factor in this, as he is obsessed with AI, and it will make fraud much easier. They are cutting workforce, and increasing exponentially the number of accounts they will have to review, things are not going to work out well at all.

1662

Yep, and that last point is what everyone (reasonably) assumes will happen. Which leads to the speculation on how big of a shitstorm is headed towards Twitter HQ.

If we’re talking fully automated verification done either 1) on an unreasonably tight deadline or 2) by employees who are eyeing the exit and dislike the new ownership (or both!) I can easily see it accepting Totally Legit documents from someone that doesn’t give two shits about charges in a US court.

1663

It will be like Papers Please

1664

So that’s not correct.

Currently Twitter verification is pretty…fungible. You can send them an image of your government issued ID (which I’m sure isn’t at all susceptible to photoshop) or (for people at various organizations who might be prominent) you can provide them with an email address associated with the company you work for that actually is a company email. Or I guess looks like a company email. And a phone number, which may or may not be checked. That’s been the process since Twitter “reopened” verification in May of 2021.

Back in May of this year, we wanted to get our company CEO verified. He had to click “Request Verification” on his twitter account, and then provide is company email address and phone. No one ever sent an email to him or any of our other email accounts at the company, nor did they ping his phone.

By July 4, he had a checkmark.

1665

Verification used to be simple. You sent them proof of who you were and they did it.

Then Twitter decided that Verification was reserved for Special People, of which basically no one qualified. State Supreme Court justice? Nope, not important enough. Random fuckwit Alt-Right Youtube influencer? Here is your blue check m’lord. Many remember the shitstorm when they removed Danny DeVito’s check for no reason as well as the numerous shitstorms when people like Cernovich got their under Dorsey.

They probably changed it because it cost them money on a spreadsheet, because techbros they didn’t realize that a lot of what made the site usable for people was knowing that people saying shit were actually who they said they were. Now Elon is going to burn that part down so he can fire all the programmers and make the only blue checks his devoted Stans and maybe a few corporations.

Someone also pointed out that he’ll basically be extorting every government agency, elected official and department that exists. How do we know you’re the CDC unless you pay us money? How do we know you’re the Orange County Sheriff’s department unless you pay us money? Extended to every single part of government.

Edit: Though using government money to keep his shit afloat is basically his SOP, so it fits.

1666
1667

Going back to the firing executives for cause thing, Levine helpfully quotes the relevant contractual definition:

1668

Deleted my Twitter account and moved over to Counter.Social. Not that I really posted much, anyway.

1669

So the 30 written notice thing eliminates (b), (c), (f). I don’t think any of them had (d), which leaves Musk’s options either (a) or (e).

1670

There’s also the WARN Act, which I think requires 60-day notification for layoffs in Twitter’s case if they plan mass layoffs.

The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN) protects workers, their families, and communities by requiring employers with 100 or more employees (generally not counting those who have worked less than six months in the last 12 months and those who work an average of less than 20 hours a week) to provide at least 60 calendar days advance written notice of a plant closing and mass layoff affecting 50 or more employees at a single site of employment.