I think making it a brand-coloured tick conveyed too much of a positive message so people took it as an endorsement, leading to pressure to "unverify" if that person did or said something bad.
Given that action, the "verified" tick then becomes an even stronger signal of endorsement.
Perhaps it would be better to call them "Partners" like on Twitch and make it an explicit contract with revenue kickback.
Of course they could abandon all pretenses and just call it "ticked" accounts without saying what it means at all...
Your case would imply there is a confirmation interval... which I don’t think is the case.
YouTube's check mark is a tiny unassuming grey thing, and they're going through the exact same process right now where they claim it's being construed as an endorsement.
I researched this for the 2018 Reverse Hackathon run by HackMentalHealth and found that in 2015, approximately 0.05% of Twitter accounts were verified (source: https://medium.com/@Haje/who-are-twitter-s-verified-users-af...). The source above has an even deeper breakdown on the verified users' backgrounds.
If they don't want it to be construed as an endorsement, they could let any user not only apply for verification, but actually verify their identity behind their accounts. Not force, but allow it. This could shift the percentage of verified accounts up to the point where they're not part of an exclusive 0.05% club.
If they keep at it 0.05% of the accounts that they deem to be worthy of being verified, then it sure seems like an intentional endorsement.
(my article: https://medium.com/hackmentalhealth/why-twitter-should-verif...)
Completely insane.
To verify yourself on instagram etc. you need to submit identification etc. . Once you have done that there should be no reason to take that away from you if valid.
You are still you unless maybe you get married and your name changes which could require a re-verification and if the policy was changed that you don't qualify for verification it would be fair for you to be no longer verified.
From what I understands, the previous verification was merely reaching 100k, nothing more. I wouldn't call that fraudulent, but considering many people may expect it to means that their identity was actually verified by Youtube (and not that they simply reached a milestone in subscription), I wouldn't call that being verified.
> To verify yourself on instagram etc. you need to submit identification etc. . Once you have done that there should be no reason to take that away from you if valid.
I agree, but we aren't talking about Instagram now, but Youtube.
There's 2 issues here. First it doesn't means the subscribers are actually legit. You could see from time to time channel that can lose hundred thousands subscribers in a day because Youtube purged a bunch of fake accounts. It's harder to see now that Youtube abbreviate the subscriber count, but I remember, it wasn't something constant, it was sporadic.
Second, it's only true if the name is original. More and more channels reach the 100k everyday, it's just going to be harder and harder to make sure none of them try to impersonate someone else. If that stay the only thing needed to be "verified", you'll get someone that will get that "verified" status even though he isn't the one he is saying he is, that's just the good old Murphy's law for you.
As I said, verify tag make people believe that you have actually been verified. It does makes sense that you change your politic so that you actually verify people...
Basically, if you were tasked with verifying KFC, you could check that the KFC on YouTube is indeed the fast food chain. If you were tasked with verifying PewDiePie, then what are you verifying?
I would certainly trust a verified user more for that reason.
I searched and seems like the previous politic was to simply give the verified status if you reached 100k subscribers without any others verification. How is that verified in any way? Is that verification was merely to state that at least 100k people clicked a button? That would makes it a pretty bad verified status and pretty far from what anyone may expect it to verify. Considering Youtube only remove bots from time to time, it may not even be true.
They were never verified in the first place, removing them makes sense.
If your account can get hacked and never retrieved, what's it worth being verified?
It's not a long-dead scientist, but is still verified as such.
I hope the US soon passes legislation banning impersonation of the dead unless they explicitly authorized that use while alive.
Similarly Erica Garner's account is verified and was taken over by one of her friends after her death. Some controversy after account tweeted things in direct contradiction to what Garner said while alive.
The blue verified badge on Twitter lets people know that an account of public interest is authentic. [0]
It's not authentically Albert Einstein (which is objective), nor do I see how his estate posting science news from who-knows-where is of public interest (this is subjective, and there is enough grey area that it makes for a weak policy).
If an account is verified, Twitter should also explain why. This explanation could be in the users' bio.
0 - https://help.twitter.com/en/managing-your-account/twitter-ve...
I agree with your main point. On a tangent: I'm not sure "goodie two-shoes" is quite the right term.
I would argue that by helping to expose illegal actions by the U.S. government, Assange was a poster child for "goodies two-shoes".
Verification ticks are just a badge of being well connected, and approved. And having your tick removed is a way of saying that you have stepped out of line.
That is too postmodern for my tastes. I would strongly argue that one can speak without making false statements, and would be very much in favor of some sort of fact-checking badge on social media. It would be difficult, but I really believe it would be worth it.
So far pretty much every fact checking organization, regardless of original intent, eventually succumbs to the temptation to bend their fact checking to their ideological preference.
There is no social media company that has the credibility to even be taken seriously as a impartial arbiter of fact.
People who share political ideologies with these sites tend to overestimate their accuracy and underestimate their displayed bias.
Don't get me wrong, I think these sources are more accurate than many journalistic institutions, but they are not infallible or completely unbiased.
It should be like an voluntary stricter license with arbitrary conditions set on content creators.
They just need to articulate what those conditions are.
The lack of being direct is what is hurting them here, and also not communicating what “verified” actually means, because it doesnt mean “you are popular and important” it just means “you are an aspiring LA model or aspiring SF tech CEO that both perform for Saudi money”
They should change what they call verified to another label like “goodie two-shoes” instead. As it is is a complete misnomer. It’s basically used to get users to behave a certain way and if they don’t conform they don’t get verified or if they are verified it gets revoked.