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Comment by thorum | Hacker News Reader

Blue checkmarks are not just about verification and extra features. They’re a status symbol. They mean you are cool and notable enough to deserve one according the shadowy and mysterious Twitter checkmark committee. If they become a commodity that anyone with a little money can buy, they lose a big part of their appeal to the average person.

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You hit the nail on the head in your post. The mysterious Twitter checkmark committee that got to gatekeep who could be in their group. Then people (probably the committee itself) started pushing the idea that blue check marks are more reliable and trustworthy.

I am not okay with a random group of people being able to decide whether or not someone is trustworthy. I prefer the checkmark to mean this person pays x dollars versus this person has been deemed worthy of a secret group of people at a company that has massive bias issues.

Trustworthiness has never been part of the equation, what the heck are you talking about???

It’s not a trust mark, it’s an authentication mark: this person is who they say they are. It really is Stephen King. Your grandmother doesn’t need an authentication mark because you can call her up and ask “Hey, granny, did you really tweet that?” Nothing to do with actual trust, other than that the famous name really is famous name.

i actually think checkmarks was twitter's great strength. it made them look like a medium with ideology and editorialization, which attracted a lot of ideologically committed people. Twitter used the checkmark to gatekeep twitterers and as a weapon. they ridiculously "unverified" people (as if those people lost their identity or sth). It was all about signaling. Now it's just something you can buy

They still are a strength, if you search for a public person by name the blue checkmark still works very well. But if it's commodity where scammers can buy them then the strength is gone.

I initially thought this too, but then I remembered: a lot of people on social media care very much about how many followers they get, how many likes they get, etc. Under the new plan, you will get priority in replies, mentions, and search. I think that will have a lot of value for people addicted to likes.

The checkmarks won't be a status symbol anymore, but the masses will want their tweets prioritized.

At the moment I think it's kind of embarrassing to see someone edit a tweet, because it means they've been paying for Twitter Blue.

> They’re a status symbol. They mean you are cool and notable

Is that what you think when you see a blue check?

Not OP. But definitely yes. I feel that person is maybe important and if they are talking about lets say tech/vidya I lookup their names on google to find out more about them. They are definitely a status symbol and like a seal of approval that the person is well known in whatever field they are in.

> If they become a commodity that anyone with a little money can buy, they lose a big part of their appeal to the average person.

this is basically how it operated before, except with political bias

> They mean you are cool and notable enough to deserve one according the shadowy and mysterious Twitter checkmark committee

That's the exact problem with the blue checkmarks. I've seen plenty of complete loons with that mark on Twitter spewing utter racist or bigoted garbage. At least now the criteria of receiving the blue mark of coolness are getting clear and the same for everyone.

>they lose a big part of their appeal to the average person.

However, there is a lag time between when the status-conferring benefits end and the semantics of the blue check mark in the minds of users catches up. They can potentially make a lot of money in that lag time and bootstrap a new valuable semantics around the verified label.

It depends. There are so many terrible posters with blue checkmarks that I almost consider it a red flag. Most of my favorite twitter profiles are unverified.

No average person cares about having a blue-tick; you have to several standard deviations away from the mean to care already.

I mean so is the Github "pro" badge. You don't need it if all you're using are free features. And yet a lot of people buy it to showcase support or have that "cool" badge. If the same happens for twitter then good for them no? They get more funding to develop cool shit.

Yeah, but the way this played out and was promoted, it wont say "cool". The badge being cool requires certain kind of PR and this does not seem to me to be it. In github case, pro badge means you support resource many many developers user for free and is super useful. In case of twitter, it is unclear what it means, really. That you want to yell louder I guess?

As a big twitter user that badge already has quite the status symbol

It is status symbol, because twitter nurtured it as a status symbol. You could not get it, unless their commission decided you are notable enough. The impossibility to get it and the social approval that comes with it are what made that status symbol.

True, I’m wondering how this will change now that you can just buy it. It might become this “if you don’t have it you might be a spam account” or smthg

Do people really do that on github? Im curious where you have noticed it or similar behaviour. I know the GitHub stars being a status symbol for dinner but never noticed badge idea.

That's the bet. I'm willing to bet that they'll make good money from it, which is all that matters from twitter's pov.

Maybe they lose the appeal as you say. But on the other hand, maybe everyone now wants to avoid not having it.

This is day 5 of the Elon/Sink era.

I expect more changes are ahead that might address these concerns.

I expect a never-ending fountain of new concerns, as old ones fade from view.

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