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Comment by colpabar | Hacker News Reader

I struggle to understand why verification on social media platforms involves anything more than taking a picture of yourself touching your nose with your left hand or whatever. The point should be to prove that the account is actually you, right? How did it end up being some kind of badge of honor?

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It's in a social media company's best interest for its user base to easily find and distinguish between Matt Smith the famous actor and the thousands of other Matt Smiths, especially the ones who might try to fake being the famous Matt Smith for shits and giggles and/or profit. "Verification" is definitely the wrong term for it, but if companies could come up with a different verb that didn't make even more obvious the divide between "important" people and the rest, they would have by now.

However, doesn't this "IsFamous" label break down when multiple famous people share a name. No obvious example spring to mind, but it surely must happen...

Seems like it would be more useful to have some kind of more general labelling system, where you could be 'verified' as (say) a famous actor, and/or musician, or whatever. Then people could distinguish not only the famous Matt Smith from the unfamous, but also the painter Matt Smith, and so on.

The UK actor's union Equity effectively acts as a name registrar to avoid this: https://www.actorsequity.org/join/WhyJoin/name-protection/

That's why https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Walliams spells his name with an A rather than the more normal I.

I mean, Michael B. Jordan is a good example of why you don't have a good example. Even if you share the name, you have to differentiate it somehow to be marketable.

As a sibling of yours points out, it's not just for marketing: the US actors' union does not allow active (or potentially inactive) members to share a name.

Michael B. Jordan has the B because Michael Jordan has a SAG card from his movie work.

I'm guessing some of these websites will favor content from "verified" users?

I mean, people will jump through flaming hoops for some stupid clout / prestige, but I would think there's some financial motive to all this. Could be that once you're verified on various platforms, companies will start to call you down with ad placement offers.

Sort of like how there are only Wikipedia pages for “notable” people, only people with some amount of fame get a blue check mark on these platforms.

there are at least cut and dry criteria for what notability means on wp.

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