Who gets Twitter’s highly coveted blue checkmark has always been a contentious topic.
While it might sound great to some at first, there are serious downsides to it.
Let’s take a look.
This is understandable to some extent.
They’ll probably lose their Twitter status if everyone suddenly becomes Twitter royalty.
Elon Musk wants to smash this divide.
Like money, an item is more coveted and valuable when it’s scarce.
Right now, the verification badge is a scarce digital commodity, an infinite supply diminishes its appeal.
Unlike social networks like Facebook, Twitter doesn’t enforce an official real-name policy.
you might choose to tweet with your real name, brand name, or an anonymous account.
This pseudo-anonymity is very important for a lot of Twitter users.
you could, say, criticize repressive governments without fear of being identified and victimized.
“Verification for all” runs a great risk of pushing Twitter towards being a de-facto real-name-only platform.
This would indirectly pressurize people to get verified and lose anonymity in the process.
Say an account with a blue checkmark changes its handle to@whiteh0useto impersonate@whitehouse.
Or maybe something like@twitter_supportto impersonate@twitterSupport, all this while having a blue tick?
If there are no strong countermeasures in place, it could be an open season for criminals.
Now give me your password.
This is not some theoretical idea, verified accounts changing their handle to scam people has already been happening.
Twitter’s founder Jack Dorsey had to publicly comment on the issue back in 2018.
With millions of accounts being suddenly verified, you could only imagine how many fakes will pop up.
However, you should probably take this one with a pinch of salt.
People also threatened to leave the platform ifElon Musk bought Twitter.
Nonetheless, people could really see through their threats.
Genius or a Mistake?
Twitter was sailing smoothly without much public scrutiny until Elon Musk became Twitter’s new owner.
Now, disruptive new changes are popping up in typical Elon Musk fashion.
A lot of people argue that his latest moves will have problematic fallouts.
So, could managing Twitter be harder than rocket science?
Could Musk be overestimating the ingenuity of his plans?
Only time will tell.
