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.
Completely insane.