It’s been a confusing few weeks for Twitter around verifying users, that’s for sure. But as of November 25, the company finally clarified it will be issuing blue, gold, and gray check marks for $8 a month once it manually authenticates the account holder’s identity. Now at least there’s some sense and meaning with regard to classification.
To explain the color categories for those who haven’t kept up with the busy news cycle, blue is for people (“celebrity or not”), gold is for companies, and gray is for government entities. That might still be true as you read this, despite the rapid-fire changes at Twitter.
These are the facts so far. But I’d like to address a point that is easily overlooked amidst the noise around the politics and the personalities involved. Namely, that although it’s been a rocky road, Twitter’s move toward verification is a very good thing. Not just for Twitter, but for social media as a whole.
Twitter has become a vital forum for important discourse. It’s where news of national and international importance breaks. It plays a role in shaping cultures and political movements. In short, Twitter matters. But in order for it to grow and serve us better, it needs a way for its community to distinguish information from disinformation, and that requires a foundation of trust.
And the fact that Twitter is tackling this issue is a massive step in the right direction.
Social media has had an identity problem—who’s at fault?
It’s easy to blame our digital institutions and their owners for whatever we don’t like, but let’s remember that the Internet was not built with any protections in mind, let alone ways to accurately verify people are who they say they are.
As Vinton Cerf—a co-creator of internet protocols—put it: “We didn’t focus on how you [humanity] could wreck this system intentionally.”
The rise of social media enabled people to build relationships and communities. It has enabled people from all corners of the world to build businesses, despite geographical disadvantages. But no social media company was prepared to handle and protect hundreds of millions of users, curate their content, protect them from everyone else on the platform, and determine their identities to curb the rapid rise of online abuse.
Putting aside all feelings and emotions, Twitter has been trying, and its efforts began even before the change of ownership. There hasn’t been a silver bullet yet because it’s a hard problem to solve that requires experimentation, with failures along the way. Did Thomas Edison come up with the light bulb on the first try? I think not!
What verification unlocks: accessibility, accountability and scalability
Make no mistake, it will take much more than an $8 monthly subscription check-mark to solve the identity and trust problem of social media, mainly because the identity of an individual is complex and tough to authenticate at a granular level.
Our basic premise is this: While it’s not the complete answer, knowing who is behind any post on social media is critical. In my view, Twitter needs to handle the following issues to start constructing a foundation of trust.
First, accessibility. Getting verified has been an issue for Twitter users looking to grow their audiences. This is not news. Even celebrities have had a hard time getting verified. Now think of, say, an up-and-coming musician or comedian looking to build a following. Where does that leave them? Verification, if done right, should level the playing field and give everyone equal opportunity at garnering exposure.
Accessibility also refers to geography. Verification does require private information, and the applicable laws on handling sensitive data vary greatly by jurisdiction. Part of accessibility is internationalizing the whole process.
Second, accountability. Can accurate verification of identity magically stop fraud while removing disinformation and abuse from Twitter? We all recognize that on its own, it cannot. However, identity verification is a first step in the journey. It begins to shift the burden of censoring inappropriate content from the network to account owners. Once users are irrevocably identified with an account, they may not want to damage their personal reputation by misbehaving online. Of course, some personalities want to be known for their toxic brand and will pay Twitter monthly, so you know who they are.
Last and definitely not least, scalability. For both accountability and accessibility, scalability is critical. In Twitter’s past efforts on content moderation, conducted largely by teams of people, we’ve seen how difficult it is to handle Twitter’s volume. One challenge: how to enable Twitter’s trust and safety teams to scale up and provide a consistent, well-defined procedure while preserving privacy according to local laws and whatever promises Twitter makes.
How to make verification really work
As mentioned, Twitter intends to verify identity for everyone who is ready to pay for a check mark. I would regard that as a remarkable commitment. Management will need to overcome the scalability challenge in order to achieve accessibility and accountability. That means solving the cost issue and achieving economies of scale. If they can’t do that, delays in enabling those check marks would leave a great deal of subscription revenue on the table, and establishing a community of trust will be a goal that remains out of reach.
The company is on a roller-coaster, and the experiment is underway. It’s almost impossible to predict where Twitter will be one short year from now, except to say it will have evolved.
Rick Song is the cofounder and CEO of Persona.
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