In a world of fakes, I sure wish there was a way to tell what was real.
Twitter’s blue check mark was an ingenious answer to this impossible problem.
The check mark meant Twitter verified that the person logging into that account was who they said they were.
Even pseudonymous accounts for political activists living under repressive regimes couldreliably get their message out.
To help, Twitter enacted extra protections liketwo-step verificationto help us all trust the system.
Of course, it wasn’t perfect.
For years, Twitter struggled to keep up with the volume of accounts that genuinely deserved verification.
Instead, he said anyone could get a check mark by paying $8 per month.
A couple weeks later, it’sdevolved into chaos.
So, I’m turning in my blue check markas soon as I can.
Oddly enough, the last straw for me came from Musk himself.
Musk said it was false.
I just cannot.
The same was true when Facebook gave me a blue check mark for my account there too.
But that was the only value it seemed to bring.
But the last couple years have soured me on so much of it.
Some epically funny tweets
To be sure, I won’t be giving up on Twitter entirely.
I don’t think many of today’s journalists really can, particularly if they cover the tech industry.
But I do hope that Musk learns from his mistakes and fixes the problems Twitter’s always faced.
There’s a lot of good Twitter’s brought to the world.
I’d hate to see that all go because the bad won out.
