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Comment by bayeslaw | Hacker News Reader

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bayeslaw·

care to elaborate?

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it would be extremely easy to bypass with fake/stolen ids

how do you put a real human face next to a stolen id? not sure you understand what verification means

not sure you understand how far scammers go lol

not trying to be facetious but are you really suggesting that "scammers" will kidnap ppl, and photograph them next to their ID (which they also conveniently have), just to sign up to a social network (where they have to pay a monthly fee)? and they'll do this by the thousands? wow.. what a world we live..

You really underestimate scammers. If you create a popular social network and there is money to be made, they'll find a way. They'll visit a developing country and pay people $5 to hold a fake ID card for a photo or video. Paying $5,000 for 1,000 fake accounts isn't a problem for them, because they'll quickly make that money back selling likes, followers, or pushing advertisements.

This quickly changes the premise of your service from a verified social network with content written by real humans, to a social network with mostly real paying users, some fake paying users, and any content you see may or may not be written by a bot. Is it really that different from other social networks at that point?

no I'm not suggesting they'll kidnap people

heard of deepfakes and editing?

ok so you have to - steal an ID or forge one - deep fake the person on the ID (at least a 10sec video) - then you'll pay a monthly fee - since there's no API you'll need to pay troll farms to use these accounts

I'd say that's already a barrier 100x higher than any other platform so not a lot scammers will jump over it. I don't see this as a binary thing. This (like most things) is a scale. Having 100x less scammers on a platform is qualitatively better than having 100x more. Wouldn't you agree?

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