False and misleading posts about the Ukraine conflict continue to go viral on major social media platforms, as Russia's invasion of the country extends beyond 500 days.
Some of the most widely shared examples can be found on Twitter, posted by subscribers with a blue tick, who pay for their content to be promoted to other users.
@janwwbosch@gavreilly Oh they are just randomly putting it on accounts now - presumably to prevent the #BlockTheBlue campaign. BBC news is unlikely to be paying for blue (or they'd be paying for the gold one not the blue one) so yeah this is twitter being twitter 2.0
@8lettersuk@janwwbosch@gavreilly He definitely paid for it. He was asked about it ( by Adrian Weckler I think) on his show this morning and said it was for the ability to edit posts, post longer videos, and to ‘prevent imposters’.
He clearly still sees his follower count there ( which he knew off the top of his head) as reflecting an important audience for him personally. Make if that what you will.
Elmo's randomly fluctuating #Twitter#BlueTick policy is like someone hastily putting up, then removing and moving, emergency exit signs on an Escher staircase that's on fire.
@helenczerski I logged in this morning and some are getting blue ticks restored, even when they didn't have them before and haven't paid for them. Dara Ó Briain is one example. Long-standing blue tick Prof Brian Cox is another.
“Twitter’s approach may help its business, but won’t help people identify who or what is worth listening to and the danger is that it will ultimately degrade trust that is critical for long-term sustainability”
@jsamwrites this is Ppa Smrf. And I know this because he paid 30 gold for the red hat and tights to prove that it was him…. Well, actually that’s SMURFETTE stuffed into a Ppa Smrf skinsuit and paid someone 30 gold to tell everyone that she was ‘he’. Why would she want to be him? Nobody listens to her, but will listen to HIM
I don't usually repost things from the other place, but @iandunt on the loss of his blue tick is absolutely priceless.
"Anyway, if you ever think someone's impersonating me, just watch out for how many times they say cunt. If it's less than once a day, they're having you on. Accept no cunt substitutes."
😂 #BlueTick#SpaceKaren
An online system of #verification should show one thing and one thing only: that someone is who they say they are. #Twitter’s old verification system showed that someone was notable by some ill-defined and non-transparent criterion. The new one shows they have a paid subscription. So neither achieves that goal. #BlueTick
@8lettersuk I disagree. It did verify that people were who they said they were, but was only open to a select few. So it carried an implication of importance or significance over and above the verification. Separating out these two things and allowing anyone to be verified (not just by paying) is a good thing IMO. But the new system doesn’t do either of them.
@keithwilson you said "An online system of #verification should show one thing and one thing only: that someone is who they say they are."
And that's what it did. That's all it did. The fact you interpreted it as something else does not change that. The Blue Check next to a journalist told me that journalist was who they said they were.