Blue checks on X deceiving users into engaging with harmful material, EU says

Here's the official press release, which has more details than the Irish Times article: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_...

In particular, this is the complaint relating to "verified" status:

> Since anyone can subscribe to obtain such a “verified” status, it negatively affects users' ability to make free and informed decisions about the authenticity of the accounts and the content they interact with. There is evidence of motivated malicious actors abusing the “verified account” to deceive users.

I actually think there is some merit to this. Verified used to mean what it sounds like: the identity was verified to match the account. The verification process seems a lot more lax post-Elon. I'm fine with that, but then they shouldn't call it "verified".

This would seem to be entirely about how different parties view blue checks.

There's no law that says a blue check next to a name comes with any kind of guarantee. Unless X has language somewhere about what "verified" actually connotes beyond the simplest interpretation of the word, I don't see what the action is here.

This seems like a stretch?

The blue checkmark is really nothing more than, I paid for this. It gives you certain benefits on the system and it does amplify your voice. But is that really any different than ads?

All for criticism of how much X's reputation has been destroyed and a lot of the choices Elon has made, but this one... it doesn't make any sense to me.

> “deceives” users into believing such accounts are safe when “there is evidence of motivated malicious actors abusing” the check mark system

In what way do they deceive and abuse? The article doesn’t say.

> a number of high-profile public figures distanced themselves from verification on X

> Hashtags such as #BlockTheBlueChecks trended on X in the backlash, while several celebrities decided to leave the platform

If the public perception has indeed turned against the blue checks, surely there’s no longer a reputation to uphold. What’s X’s legal obligation here?

[dupe]

Some more discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40947128

Government agencies had a sophisticated system of censorship and propaganda on Twitter before Elon bought it and shut them down.

This is nothing more than a naked attempt to regain that control or at least throttle the flow of inconvenient information.

Very soviet. If you're one of the many govt/NGO types on this site, it's a good time to ask yourself, "Are we the baddies?"

These are the same types of issues that took down Parler. Now that Twitter is has completed the transformation into Parler 2.0, this type of legal trouble will just keep piling up. It's a natural result of the (mis)management philosophy of its operators.

lol, boomers acting like bluechecks were trustworthy even before elon started selling them.

Twitter is a dumpsterfire. If you still choose to stay in it, you shouldn't complain about the smell.

I think the main problem is the organisations (such as various municipalities in EU) that use twitter as an official communication channel, which forces citizens to be there too.

A year ago I was listening to philosophytube do his interpretation of Julius Caesar's speech about The Conspiracy Of Catiline, which you can find somewhere in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8NVy00tfdI.

Who didn't praise the EU when they were the first government to hit back at these Big Tech psychopath surveillance machines? And yet, as the years go by, it seems like we've seen a power struggle in which tech's vision of its own power became inflated, and the state reminded it of its place.

My enthusiasm for the EU (which once looked like a a constellation of yellow stars to guide the world through the stormy oceans of illiberalism towards a freer tomorrow under president picard or kirk) has waned substantially. Are they a land that overcame the struggles that plagued my homeland (TEXAS), or were they simply an artificial disneyland who's paperthin democracies veiled near totalitarian control by a foreign empire?

I feel this viscerally now that I live in LatAm and can see so transparently the influence of the state dept and its NGOs brewing a counter elite. It even feels odd to think of me and the people here as "being from different countries". Aren't we all Natons, from NATO, loyal to our shared Progress flag and social democratic values, governed by the same managerial elites who go to the same schools, speak the same language, etc? A Gaul and a Jew are in some sense both Roman, during the second century.

I do believe someone was confused by a blue checkmark scammer. I also do believe that has nothing to do with what the "EU says" in this instance. But I'm probably wrong. I was 100% all-in for hilldawg in 2016, Biden for 2024, essentially I never predict things correctly. I've even thought of trying to monetize my bad political instincts by joining one of those crypto prediction markets and betting on the opposite of whatever feels certain to me.

No shit.

I can verify that x is banned where I work, course I work at home heh heh heh

127.0.0.1 x.com 127.0.0.1 twitter.com