“Blue Checks” Explained 🔥

Years ago, before verified accounts were a thing, back when I was on Eastenders, I was contacted multiple times by parents of children who had been “conversing” with me online. 11-15 year old children that had been talking with a fake me.
I was informed one of these children-

— Rob Kazinsky (@RobertKazinsky) November 2, 2022

Could find, Facebook, myspace, Bebo, anything.
I felt powerless to stop people using my name and face to scam or groom people.
That’s why verification came to be. Because it was important to protect people.
It wasn’t for clout, or for leveraging money from a platform.
It was to-

— Rob Kazinsky (@RobertKazinsky) November 2, 2022

I don’t tweet much, I am scared of the internet, I struggle with a lot of things in life. But this account exists so that fake accounts can’t.
If @elonmusk removes that simple ability to protect people, to protect children with verification then this company is dead in the water

— Rob Kazinsky (@RobertKazinsky) November 2, 2022

Verification is a public service, it is a good deed performed by companies who contribute very little good to the world in my opinion. We should be making easier clearer paths to verification for everyone, not making it harder. It is their responsibility, not a business model.

— Rob Kazinsky (@RobertKazinsky) November 2, 2022

The public service will cost you $8 a month. And even then, it won’t be a public service.

Pay or we’ll suppress your tweets.
Power to the people. pic.twitter.com/gRcuxrnNhG

— @PeteStrzok@mastodon.social (@petestrzok) November 5, 2022

Elmo is not just throwing Twitter into the dumpster fire.

Everybody I’m following (granted, that’s about 6 people) is opening a Mastodon account.

Seems like a bunch of Mastodon instances are closed to new users or having server timeouts, suggesting a lot of new users. Huh.

— RiggedAndStollenHat (@Popehat) November 5, 2022

It’ll happen slowly, and then it will happen all at once. Who thinks the advertisers won’t figure this out?

Ah:

If you don’t pay the $8 your tweets will be suppressed by an algorithm. Not making this shit up he said it to a room of investors yesterday & claimed this would solve hate speech. “You’ll have to scroll really far to see unverified users” pic.twitter.com/gSzXtzFYtC

— Aaron Stewart-Ahn (@somebadideas) November 5, 2022

Make that: much sooner than later.