Friday, November 10, 2017

Twitter suspends verification as furor swirls over its meaning

Is verification a sign of Twitter’s approval?

Although the company has long asserted that the blue checkmark is not an endorsement, the phrase “in the public interest” and the requirement that users prove they are “influential” have made the designation a sign of prestige.

Now Twitter is walking that language back after it was revealed an organizer of the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville had been verified.

Bloomberg wrote:

Twitter originally verified accounts of “public interests,” such as journalists, public figures and celebrities. Many have interpreted the policy to mean that verification is an indicator of importance. The company has come under criticism for unclear disclosure of how verification is determined and inconsistent application of the marker.

“Verification was meant to authenticate identity & voice but it is interpreted as an endorsement,” Twitter’s user support division wrote in a tweet on Thursday. “We recognize that we have created this confusion and need to resolve it.”

Kessler was vocal on his Twitter account, infamously attacking the activist who was killed when a white nationalist sympathizer drove his car into a crowd of demonstrators.

Bloomberg continued:

In the aftermath of the Charlottesville rally, which left a counter-protester dead, Kessler used his Twitter account to call the woman, Heather Heyer, “a fat, disgusting Communist.” “Looks like it was payback time,” he wrote, according to reports.

Although Twitter maintains that the verification badge is not a sign of respect, many observers have remarked that its significance is muddled.

Bloomberg reported further:

"They’ve always said from the beginning that verification is not an endorsement, but a check mark in our culture does seem to convey that to many people," said Stephen Balkam, founder of the Family Online Safety Institute, a nonprofit that’s part of Twitter’s Trust and Safety Council. "I can understand people’s outrage over verifying someone like Jason Kessler, with a confederate flag behind him."

Other controversial figures have been denied verification or had their badges temporarily removed, including Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

Some observers were less concerned with Twitter’s explanation behind its practices, focusing instead on why the tech company once again finds itself the subject of controversy.

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Endgadget wrote:

Now, the problem isn't so much that Twitter can't sufficiently explain how its verification process works or why it chooses the accounts that it does approve, nor is it so much the company's mealy-mouthed non-answers when situations like this arise. These are both significant issues, to be sure, but they're only part of a larger problem: the fact that Twitter can't seem to stop making matters worse. These faux pas keep happening, the "inadvertent" errors flowing nearly as freely as anonymous death and rape threats, and it needs to stop.

The Washington Post published an opinion column by staff writer Molly Roberts contending that Twitter was trying to shift the blame to its users:

Twitter’s announcement put the burden and the blame on its readers for the way they “interpret” how it dispenses its blue badges; the platform claimed it only cares whether the people behind a page are who they say they are. But even according to company policy, this is false: Twitter’s not very helpful “How can we help?” page says that “the blue verified badge … lets people know that an account of public interest is authentic.” And who decides how publicly interesting is publicly interesting enough? Twitter, of course.

Roberts isn’t buying Twitter’s neutral stance:

Twitter’s decision to suspend all verifications is a cop-out. Verifying no one is the same as verifying everyone: It allows Twitter to appear completely content-neutral.

But Twitter is not content-neutral, and as long as the site is shutting some people down and propping others up, anyone with a brain will recognize that. One answer is to step back and let the world run wild. A better one is to take tighter hold of the reins — and admit that’s what they’re doing.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey admitted the company hadn’t responded fast enough:

Some pointed out that Twitter had intended that the blue badge attest to documentation:

Others pointed out that they had been denied verification because they were not “influential”:

Twitters employees also spoke out:

Many found Twitter’s explanation insufficient:

Some activists agree with Twitter that if white nationalists are going to publish on the platform, it is better that the public can identify them.

Now Twitter must decide how to go forward with verification, and later it will have a large communications challenge to tackle. Meanwhile, it is shutting down its verification apparatus and hoping that Twitter users will stick around long enough for the company to figure itself out.

What should Twitter’s next steps be, PR Daily readers?

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