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🧵 There’s a lot of discussion around Twitter verification right now, aka the “Blue Check”.
I am going to dump some brief thoughts about the Blue Check. I think they are relevant and cover nuances frequently overlooked.
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I am going to dump some brief thoughts about the Blue Check. I think they are relevant and cover nuances frequently overlooked.
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First, we should get it out of the way, the “Blue Check” has never been blue. It is a White Check inside of a Blue 8-bump-clover thingy. And on dark mode, it is a black check on a White 8-bump-clover thingy.
But let’s just call it the “Blue Check” anyway.
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But let’s just call it the “Blue Check” anyway.
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What does the “Blue Check” do? I would argue it does 3 things:
1) It delivers visual confirmation of Identity
2) It delivers visual confirmation of Status
3) It delivers extra features, such as filtering out mentions from non-Blue-Check users
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1) It delivers visual confirmation of Identity
2) It delivers visual confirmation of Status
3) It delivers extra features, such as filtering out mentions from non-Blue-Check users
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When you have a single “thing” doing multiple jobs at the same time, that is, by definition, conflation.
I have surfaced this repeatedly and vigorously, the Blue Check is fraught because it couples 3 distinct responsibilities into a single “thing”.
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I have surfaced this repeatedly and vigorously, the Blue Check is fraught because it couples 3 distinct responsibilities into a single “thing”.
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Expand “Authentic Identity”? More Checks dilutes the value it has as a Status symbol.
Restrict features to Checks? It creates inequality and diverges the user base for an artificial merit.
Keep the Check limited for Status? You mix all the authentic users with inauthentic.
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Restrict features to Checks? It creates inequality and diverges the user base for an artificial merit.
Keep the Check limited for Status? You mix all the authentic users with inauthentic.
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What I detailed in a pretty well defined proposal years ago at Twitter, Inc. was the *need* to decouple the values of the Blue Check so each value could be iterated on independently.
What would that look like?
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What would that look like?
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The idea, simply, is you have a separate “Status” symbol from “Authenticity” Symbol. Since every “Status” is elevated user is authentic, you can consider the “Status” symbol as a super-set of the “Authenticity” Symbol.
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What this would look like might be something subtle, like a blue dot, for the authentic users, and the blue check would remain as the status symbol. Alternatively, you go the other way, retain the blue check as a mark of authenticity, but introduce a new flourish for Status.
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Now, I further broke this down into “what” authentic identity is. What I mean by “Authentic” is that an account “is what it says it is”.
When we consider that, we have to remember what accounts represent.
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When we consider that, we have to remember what accounts represent.
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Accounts are for:
1) People — obvious
2) Brands — Organizations like biz, government, clubs
3) Bots — Good ones, like a weather bot
4) Parody / Humor — not a real person, but being true to its nature as a humor account
5) Personas — where a person takes on another persona
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1) People — obvious
2) Brands — Organizations like biz, government, clubs
3) Bots — Good ones, like a weather bot
4) Parody / Humor — not a real person, but being true to its nature as a humor account
5) Personas — where a person takes on another persona
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There may be more categories, but the thing to call out is that these accounts are all legitimate, and all warrant being identified as “they are what they say they are” AND “they are of this kind”.
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My proposal was to keep “Blue” for people, and start using alternative colors for the rest. Predefining that is not important to this thread, but you could imagine Brands being green, bots being yellow, humor being orange, personas being purple — or whatever :)
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If we were to establish concrete representation for Twitter account via distinct “Authenticity” and “Status” symbols, there is an important additional problem to address — mutability.
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It is unreasonable to have an account be delivered “Authenticity” or “Status” just to permit them to change their user name, profile photo and bio to something that does not match what was actually authenticated.
This is already an abused way to manipulate and confuse
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This is already an abused way to manipulate and confuse
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What I proposed, but perhaps there is a better way, is that with “Authenticity” comes relinquishing mutability.
Once authenticated, the updating of a name, avatar or bio MUST be accompanied by a review to prevent malice or confusion. This could be apriori or posthoc.
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Once authenticated, the updating of a name, avatar or bio MUST be accompanied by a review to prevent malice or confusion. This could be apriori or posthoc.
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I know lots of people like to use “spooky” 👻 names at halloween time. This would no longer be viable for authenticated accounts. And I think that is a good thing. As clever as it may feel, it leads to confusion and inability to recognize or find those accounts.
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But creativity is important, so there should be something *else* that can be readily visible for the account to customize. Be it a witty sub-text or the portraying of a flag for solidarity in a cause… whatever. Devote a line for this outlet.
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Right now, most Tweets have the avatar on the left with 1 highlighted line next to it: the name (w/ check if verified), @ handle, and “timestamp”
But there has already been iterations to have a second line…This line could be leveraged for Status AND for Creativity.
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But there has already been iterations to have a second line…This line could be leveraged for Status AND for Creativity.
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My point isn’t to design it in this Tweet thread, but rather to point out that it is completely viable to decouple “Identity” from “Expression”
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The end result is that once you have decoupled: Authenticity/Identity, Status symbol, and Features, plus introduced “Expression”, you have much more freedom to iterate on what will work. Some of these could be monetized. Some should not be monetized.
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My point, in the end, is that:
So long as Identity, Status Symbol, Features, and Expression are completely coupled, Twitter is doomed to isolate on a local maxima for balancing 1 “thing” serving all of them.
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So long as Identity, Status Symbol, Features, and Expression are completely coupled, Twitter is doomed to isolate on a local maxima for balancing 1 “thing” serving all of them.
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Naval Ravikant @naval
·
Nov 5, 2022
Good thread. đź‘Ś