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Chris Trottier

@aaronbuckner On the Fediverse, account verification works. You can get a green check.

5 Apr 2023 at 18:15 | Open on mastodon.social
4 comments
Codesmith

@atomicpoet @aaronbuckner Do we trust that gullible people will actually do the work to go to a person's profile and confirm green checks? And that they will do the work to make sure the website being linked is actually one run by the person they think is running the account and not one made to seem like it?

I accept that your arguments against the blue check are reasonable and where I disagree I may change my mind in time, but I think the "green check" (is it used outside Mastodon?) is not as great of a tool as it's made out to be.

@atomicpoet @aaronbuckner Do we trust that gullible people will actually do the work to go to a person's profile and confirm green checks? And that they will do the work to make sure the website being linked is actually one run by the person they think is running the account and not one made to seem like it?

5 Apr 2023 at 18:24 | Open on techhub.social
Chris Trottier

@codesmith @aaronbuckner The green check works because of rel="me", which is a well-known microformat attribute:

microformats.org/wiki/rel-me

So yes, it's used outside Mastodon.

As for how the green check is displayed, that can always be adjusted with time.

Nevertheless, the green check is better than the blue check because anyone can get verified through rel="me" -- it's not awarded from an organization that decides your "notability".

5 Apr 2023 at 18:30 | Open on mastodon.social
Codesmith

@atomicpoet @aaronbuckner My hope is that we can find good ways of discouraging impersonation. That to me was the only upside of the old blue check, though you have certainly highlighted the concerning downsides that came with that.

As you said, one thing I do like about the green check is that anyone can do it. Like, is it important that we don't have people impersonating powerful people where one fake post might affect the lives of millions of people? Yes. I think it is important to strongly discourage that. But it would also be nice for the average person to feel like someone can't impersonate them to tarnish their reputation, even if it doesn't affect millions of other people.

@atomicpoet @aaronbuckner My hope is that we can find good ways of discouraging impersonation. That to me was the only upside of the old blue check, though you have certainly highlighted the concerning downsides that came with that.

As you said, one thing I do like about the green check is that anyone can do it. Like, is it important that we don't have people impersonating powerful people where one fake post might affect the lives of millions of people? Yes. I think it is important to strongly discourage...

5 Apr 2023 at 18:50 | Open on techhub.social
Adam

@atomicpoet
It's two problems though:

1) who gets verified?
2) are they who they claim to be?

Rel="me" is better at the first but way worse at the second. Any ID verification where the imposter controls the entire process is pretty weak. It's not that hard to create a legit-looking site to link to.

Trusted instances that vet members are much better verification. It's harder to get a fraudulent journa.host account than to impersonate with a green check.

@codesmith @aaronbuckner

@atomicpoet
It's two problems though:

1) who gets verified?
2) are they who they claim to be?

Rel="me" is better at the first but way worse at the second. Any ID verification where the imposter controls the entire process is pretty weak. It's not that hard to create a legit-looking site to link to.

Trusted instances that vet members are much better verification. It's harder to get a fraudulent journa.host account than to impersonate with a green check.

5 Apr 2023 at 19:51 | Open on mstdn.social
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