Comment by somehnacct3757 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by somehnacct3757 | Hacker News Reader

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This is a good idea. Seek rent from brands already on the platform and clear out all the people who got a checkmark purely as a status symbol.

Then the checkmark can be used to bifurcate two social classes with different Twitter rights.

I believe Twitter has two types of content: PR and comments. The problem is they both look like tweets and have equal standing on the platform. PR is the valuable part of Twitter and comments are, well, comments. Most newspapers and blogs (the antiquated PR publishing mechanisms) already learned comments aren't worth the trouble. Now Twitter can make the distinction too.

For example, if you're not paying to be part of the influencer class, your comments could be hidden by default. The influencer class can also have a more stringent code of conduct, making it easier to ban people abusing their megaphone. All without stepping into 'free speech' debates with Incredibly Online keyboard warriors, who will mostly be on free accounts and themselves have what they deem to be 'free speech'.

For me, I find its largest value for things like journalism. Being able to know it's the real reporter, and not a parody account. That's not a "brand",it's not "PR", nor is it an "influencer". The value is to me, the consumer.

I think the modern manifestation of journalist is an influencer, with an individual brand, who can support their journalism through their brand. Rather than needing to clan up with a newspaper and take editorial orders from the newspaper execs.

It's pretty easy to buy-in to all journalists being influencers, but it leaves open the question how do we make sure all influencers aren't journalists. What code or standard do journalists adhere to to elevate themselves over baseline influencer, broadly speaking. That's an open question and one I hope gets answered eventually...

I think the journalist using Twitter as their platform are doing it for PR, brand and for being influencers... So I feel it is right to charge them for using it as marketing tool. Just like anyone else.

Although from what I can tell verifying journalists is at least somewhat arbitrary once you get beyond big names and pubs. I do some amount of writing for trade press etc. and I was rejected in spite of my account being impersonated the week before (and the impersonator being banned).

For sure man, give easy ($) access to favorable treatment and reach to accounts interested in self-promotion. Sounds like a really good outcome for the platform, what we need is MORE ads nested in the feed.

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