Poll of the Day > Elon's handling of Twitter tells me that Twitter itself was a mistake.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Elon's handling of Twitter tells me that Twitter itself was a mistake.

But the more I think about this as an old person, I can't help but blame the fact that we put too much stock in random accounts on the Internet.

naw, this is entirely on elon

he's changing and deleting things too rapidly with too small of a staff to keep up with. he's personally offended by people being mean to him on the internet and he's taking it out on twitter by just deleting necessary features or subverting current features in a way that is inherently duplicitous. he legitimately does not care about twitter and is already talking about bankruptcy two weeks into his shitty reign

I'm talking about the issue of being able to buy a blue checkmark. Maybe it's our fault for becoming the kind of society that puts trust in a blue checkmark.

I'm talking about the issue of being able to buy a blue checkmark. Maybe it's our fault for becoming the kind of society that puts trust in a blue checkmark.

It is like how we should have had 100% online voting and counting of ballots 12 years ago so there is never any doubt over who won an election

Seemed to work fine before Elon came along with his genius ideas. Now I can't tell who's real anymore.

it's less societal issues and more that twitter has, until the past few weeks, always assigned at least legitimacy to blue checkmarks. the rug suddenly being pulled from under us doesn't mean we have a falling problem

You're not supposed to ask yourself who's real on Twitter. That never should've been what Twitter or YouTube or Facebook were about. The problem was always that we assigned any legitimacy at all to these checkmarks.

Who are we in this thread, right now? I don't know any of your real names. That used to be how it was everywhere on the Internet. We don't need "verified accounts."

Who are we in this thread, right now? I don't know any of your real names. That used to be how it was everywhere on the Internet. We don't need "verified accounts."

that's definitely how it was on...certain websites, and not on other websites. you would go to an artist's official website if you wanted official news. your idea of everyone always being anonymous online is a fantasy. yeah, we're anonymous on here. I also have presence online where I'm not anonymous for definitely useful reasons.

Twitter's 'verified users' dealio worked, still had some problems, and then Elon proposed an idea that has even more problems.

I'd say this entire debacle is more indicative that some people (Elon) have put too much stock in the value of specific social media websites. If you screw one up, people will jump ship without it being a giant dilemma for them. He's acting like people owe him just because he thinks he's going to 'make Twitter better'. Even if he was, markets will change and different social media sites will gain or lose popularity. Acting like Twitter is the definition of 'the public square' was one of his first mistakes. It's a stupid website that is presently popular and may or may not have longevity. See MySpace, Tumblr, et al.

not all of the internet needs to be valueless shitposting drivel like 4chan or gamefaqs, you know. there are people doing actual good on twitter like Jason Schreier reporting on labor abuses in the games industry or the World Health Organization spreading important COVID and flu related information

the existence of verified twitter doesn't even DO shit to anonymous twitter, anonymous twitter has been thriving for twitter's entire existence. like if anything it should be a plus. you can't ratio ben shapiro on gamefaqs but you sure as hell can on twitter!

The damage that Verified Twitter has done to the Internet is letting people believe in things posted on random websites on the Internet. If Jason Schreier wants to do journalism, he can do it on a journalism website. If the WHO wants to publish information, they have their own website. Where we fucked up is taking consumer sites and letting major corporate/government entities set up shop on them.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/6/3/9/AAUdByAAD39X.jpg

I find this an ironic statement in a thread dedicated to people being dumb about the internet. Online voting is a terrible idea rife with opportunities for abuse, not even factoring in the threat of outright hacking. Besides, when does the reality of fraud play any role in people alleging fraud?

You're not supposed to ask yourself who's real on Twitter. That never should've been what Twitter or YouTube or Facebook were about. The problem was always that we assigned any legitimacy at all to these checkmarks.

Who are we in this thread, right now? I don't know any of your real names. That used to be how it was everywhere on the Internet. We don't need "verified accounts."

schreier does journalism on journalism websites, and links it on twitter for wider reach. same for the WHO. i literally don't understand why you feel like linking shit is some moral travesty

also, uh, are you calling jason schreier, the guy that regularly ousts major corporate entities for being pieces of shit, a major corporate entity?

you can take kals entire ergument and apply it to every other form of media. tv, print, public criers

and it's stupid each and every time.

why would you want to be anonymous on the internet unless you want to be dubious? we already have so much anonymity on the internet that it's detrimental to the overall populace in ways people don't even think about.

how many people fall for the onion? babylonbee?

how many people find misinformation at lizardpeople.r.real.ru/geocities4.0/jesus-was-a-alien-lizard and believe it?

this is what kal is arguing to keep. he's arguing for a pipe dream where none of that happens but he is still allowed to stay a random faceless person and it doesn't work like that.

moreover it's just plain idiotic.

"why don't they use their own website??!?!?!?!?!"

why don't news stations stop talking about the news then? they aren't the ones doing any of it, so there's no reason for them to let people know what's happening. it should be up to the cop that killed a innocent 5 year old to tell people he killed a person on his platform.

Haha, what? Gamefaqs has the funniest opinions.

It worked before and now it doesn't. We used to be able to tell pretty easily if it was the real public official's account, now you have to dig deeper. Yes actually that was the whole point of the verification that they removed. Like Tony Hawk, did Tony Hawk actually reply to me, or is it some guy who bought the verification?

Btw, I actually like the Twitter character limit, I think debates should work like that, because it doesn't let people dress up bad arguments with 90% poetic fluff that makes it sound better. Despite what people say I think a good argument will sound just as good at 20 words or less, a bad argument, not so much.

I don't like downvotes (on comments) either tbh. I think if someone has a problem with something posted they should reply. It's more polite that way.

I don't understand how you can write an essay on why revoking verifications is actually a good thing. Maybe not everyone wants to be anonymous. Public officials and celebrities want to be known and have a way to talk to their followers. If you wanted to be anonymous, you could always do that instead.

It is just the removal of a feature that many people enjoyed.

That's not what Twitter should be for.

I'm sure they do, but they're making the Internet worse by letting Twitter advocate for them. Nothing I see on Twitter should have any relevance to actual business. I should not be able to report a bad batch of McNuggets on Twitter, I should not be able to get corporate policy from Eli Lilly on Twitter. No more than I should be able to get these things on GameFAQs. That's not what Twitter should be for. It's just a microblogging website.

Again, there are no "checkmarked" GameFAQs accounts

where should you get that information from then

yes there is. specifically so when you say you work for x company, it's verified.

Where we got it in 2003. Companies used to have "websites" instead of cheaping out on an Instagram page.

Ah, so this "Let companies use consumer platforms" thing has spread to GameFAQs? Why should it be GameFAQs business who I am?

I don't understand how you can write an essay on why revoking verifications is actually a good thing. Maybe not everyone wants to be anonymous. Public officials and celebrities want to be known and have a way to talk to their followers. If you wanted to be anonymous, you could always do that instead.

It is just the removal of a feature that many people enjoyed.

Why would people enjoy something that never worked in the first place?

The verification worked

I'm talking about the issue of being able to buy a blue checkmark. Maybe it's our fault for becoming the kind of society that puts trust in a blue checkmark.

If it worked then everybody who had it would actually be well known.

But that's mostly because the verification system used to be more or less robust enough to trust. It wasn't perfect, by any means, but you could generally believe that a verified account belonged to the entity to which it claimed to belong because impersonation was a lot more involved than the average Internet troll was willing to get.

The problem, then, is that Musk decided he didn't want to go through all the effort of actually verifying people (which costs money) and instead tried to replace it with a paywall (which makes money), apparently under the impression that $8 was more than people were willing to spend to troll him/major public figures. The result is a whole bunch of people carrying what appears to be exactly the same credential that was trustworthy a week ago who haven't actually been verified in any way. People don't change their minds about what to trust that quickly unless it's very well-publicized that the thing they trusted is bad now (like a person being caught molesting children or something like that), and given that there was never any announcement that actually said "ignore blue checkmarks now because they don't mean anything," you get some confusion.

A person's notoriety has nothing to do with whether or not their identity has been accurately verified. This is a rather spectacular non sequitur fallacy.

If the verification system wasn't about notoriety then that means everybody should have a blue checkmark.

thanks for talking past everything I said lmao

what reason would you ever have to go to cambells.com to be able to see there's a recall on your favorite soup?

do you realize how ridiculous that is?

apply your argument to real life, not the internet.

what then.

it's been a thing since gamefaqs started. developers do come here, we even have a few ceos here. xseed is most notable. they get the nice vip tag, which is like moderators tags, except it says vip. this is specifically so you can know that this person talking about this game like they worked on it did, in fact, work on it so they can be more trusted to know what they are talking about more than some random ass dude with no credentials.

i don't know why this has to be spelled out for you multiple times. it just appears like you want to be disingenuous on purpose.

Social media was a mistake. You get the validation you crave but don't deserve. Gives the dumbest people in the world a voice and a following they don't deserve and definitely shouldn't have. Emboldens narcissistic assholes to think they're the funniest and most intelligent people ever. And by the way, who wants to share a social platform with every other human being and LLC on the planet? Hard pass from me. I can understand using something like facebook to keep in touch with IRL friends and family, but I can't see the purpose of twitter beyond marketing and arguing and vomiting worthless opinions to see how many Likes it nets you. I agree with some things TC is saying, but obviously verification is pretty important on a site like twitter so you know you're hearing from the real person/people they claim to be. Hopefully Musk runs twitter into the ground and buries it because it can't be fixed.

The mistake was always letting people believe they could hear from a real person on Twitter. Twitter never should've been for that.

If it worked then everybody who had it would actually be well known.

We got along without Twitter for a lot longer than weve had it.

Btw, I actually like the Twitter character limit, I think debates should work like that, because it doesn't let people dress up bad arguments with 90% poetic fluff that makes it sound better. Despite what people say I think a good argument will sound just as good at 20 words or less, a bad argument, not so much.

I could have told you that years ago.