Thread by @jonathanmayer

Since today is the blue check apocalypse, here’s a new research paper on Twitter’s paid account “verification.” What we learned:

1) Most people don’t understand what blue checks now mean.

2) Paid accounts are disproportionately crypto bros, Elon stans, new, and conservative.

In a nationally representative survey (n=300), most people believe a Twitter blue check requires actual verification of a person’s identity, not just a working phone number and payment. That misunderstanding is more common among older people & people with lower digital literacy.

Twitter’s misleading “verification” is causing real harms. The Eli Lilly debacle, for example, appears to have cost shareholders billions of dollars. There are countless reports of scammers abusing Twitter paid “verification” to hoodwink credulous victims.

Our research calls into question whether Twitter Blue is legal. Continued use of the blue check and the term verification, when they are so misleading and harmful to consumers, could constitute a deceptive business practice under the FTC Act and state consumer protection laws.

What’s more, Twitter may be violating its 2022 consent order with the FTC. Twitter “must not misrepresent…the extent to which [it] maintains and protects the…integrity of Covered Information.” Covered Information includes names, and integrity presumably includes accuracy.

There are many more insights about social media account verification and Twitter Blue in the paper, which you can read at the link below. Credit for the project goes to stellar @PrincetonCITP researchers @madxiaodisease, @m0namon, and @anunaykul.

cs.princeton.edu/~jrmayer/paper…