Yes, bluechecks were who they said they were. But just because you were who you said you were did not mean you could get a bluecheck.

Bluecheck -> authentic. Authentic !> bluecheck.

There was no path for most people almost all of the time to get a bluecheck, and they could be removed for arbitrary reasons having nothing to do with your identity. The "process" consisted of someone at Twitter deciding you were worthy, based on arbitrary criteria including "you're my friend."

> The claim that it was only handed out to people for social cachet doesn’t hold water. For one, Republican politicians, Fox News and other conservative publication journalists, and sufficiently notable right-leaning celebrities all had blue ticks.

Having bad politics doesn't mean one doesn't have social cachet. You yourself say here "notable" - but again, just being notable was not enough, though it was a big help. And of course, if you had the right friends, you could be completely non-notable.

Your post begins with "that's false", but the rest of it agrees with what I said.

In many old Twitter circles, having a bluecheck made you an object of derision for precisely these reasons - it didn't signify authenticity, it was a social marker that frequently came with inane tweets and thin skin that was perceived to arise due to an idea they thought they were "elite."