Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Instagram Threatened Removal of Verified Status for Posting Snapchat Content

beebom.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 151 posts

Re: Instagram Threatened Removal of Verified Status for Posting Snapchat Content

#81

Post by echelon »

hamilyon2 wrote: post #75
sailfast wrote: post #23

Removing links to other platforms is anti-competitive full stop. Threatening de-verification due to links is even worse. This is the behavior of monopolists. The FTC and existing anti-trust organizations would do well to return to their jobs and take a look at these practices broadly across the tech industry.

Isn't instagram participation voluntary and free of charge? Monopoly over what? Everyone is free to move to another platform or start his own.

> participation voluntary and free of charge

If you want distribution of your thoughts, you have to use the walled garden controlled by giants.

> Everyone is free to move to another platform or start his own.

The reality is that you can't. Not without billions of dollars of funding.

Social networks should be regulated. They can't own the platform and make moves to crush others by threatening to downgrade your voice and participation.

Re: Instagram Threatened Removal of Verified Status for Posting Snapchat Content

#82

Post by zdkl »

hamilyon2 wrote: post #75
sailfast wrote: post #23

Removing links to other platforms is anti-competitive full stop. Threatening de-verification due to links is even worse. This is the behavior of monopolists. The FTC and existing anti-trust organizations would do well to return to their jobs and take a look at these practices broadly across the tech industry.

Isn't instagram participation voluntary and free of charge? Monopoly over what? Everyone is free to move to another platform or start his own.

I despise this argument & your parent said monopolist behaviour. You can't just ignore the network/cool kid phenomenon when considering social networks; they're all trying to lock you into their own platform, and while you're right that they cannot be described as a full fledged monopoly they are trying their darndest to behave like one and disincentivise diversification.

Re: Instagram Threatened Removal of Verified Status for Posting Snapchat Content

#83

Post by delusional »

sschueller wrote: post #60
nilkn wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it’s worth, my understanding is they were actually trying to fix the situation but users conceptualize being “verified” as a sign of status and so got upset. A lot of YouTubers are currently “verified” for whom there is no risk of mistaking them for a clone account. The only real point is for YouTube to verify the channels of actual celebrities who will get lots of copycats and are known off the platform.

But if your ID has been "verified", why would you all of a sudden no longer be verified unless the verification was fraudulent? To verify yourself on instagram etc. you need to submit identification etc. . Once you have done that there should be no reason to take that away from you if valid. You are still you unless maybe you get married and your name changes which could require a re-verification and if the policy wa…

It's about what people know you from. If people know you from off platform, and they go to YouTube to see that same person, I can verify that. If your main platform is YouTube, then obviously you are you by definition, and verification carries no information.

Basically, if you were tasked with verifying KFC, you could check that the KFC on YouTube is indeed the fast food chain. If you were tasked with verifying PewDiePie, then what are you verifying?

Re: Instagram Threatened Removal of Verified Status for Posting Snapchat Content

#84

Post by jimkleiber »

HiroshiSan wrote: post #73

This somewhat related but Instagram has started doing some shady shit, for starters if you browse without an account they now cover the page with a sign up splash. The one that really grinds my gears is that I made an Instagram to follow some artists I really enjoyed browsing, and for whatever reason their algorithm flagged me, and so they deactivated my account. In order to reactivate my account they requested a pic…

So, it seems, they were telling you that you need to verify your humanity to get your account back. But if you did verify it, do you think they would have given you a “verified” status?

Re: Instagram Threatened Removal of Verified Status for Posting Snapchat Content

#85

Post by doubleemms »

lonelappde wrote: post #64
chii wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it seems increasingly that Big Tech uses all their avenues to force conformity. because these big tech companies are all dependent on advertising revenue, and thus converge to advertiser friendly behaviour.

Nothing much to do with ads in this case. If Insta cost money to use, Insta would still not want people leaving for Snap.

Of course they wouldn't, but it's a question of who their customers are – hint: not their users (even the "verified" ones).

Re: Instagram Threatened Removal of Verified Status for Posting Snapchat Content

#86

Post by aqme28 »

mc32 wrote: post #7

This “verified” nonsense is silly. Twitter knew who Assange was but refused to “verify” him. They should change what they call verified to another label like “goodie two-shoes” instead. As it is is a complete misnomer. It’s basically used to get users to behave a certain way and if they don’t conform they don’t get verified or if they are verified it gets revoked.

Consider also https://twitter.com/AlbertEinstein

It's not a long-dead scientist, but is still verified as such.

Re: Instagram Threatened Removal of Verified Status for Posting Snapchat Content

#87

Post by dingo_bat »

sailfast wrote: post #23

Removing links to other platforms is anti-competitive full stop. Threatening de-verification due to links is even worse. This is the behavior of monopolists. The FTC and existing anti-trust organizations would do well to return to their jobs and take a look at these practices broadly across the tech industry.

Being a monopolist is not inherently a bad thing. Every company wants a monopoly.

Re: Instagram Threatened Removal of Verified Status for Posting Snapchat Content

#88

Post by jimkleiber »

I’ve been waiting a long time for these platforms to let any of us human users verify our human identities. Not sure if they actually want to.

Who wants to help me build a platform with only verified (you are the human you say you are) users?

Re: Instagram Threatened Removal of Verified Status for Posting Snapchat Content

#89

Post by vageli »

sailfast wrote: post #23

Removing links to other platforms is anti-competitive full stop. Threatening de-verification due to links is even worse. This is the behavior of monopolists. The FTC and existing anti-trust organizations would do well to return to their jobs and take a look at these practices broadly across the tech industry.

> Removing links to other platforms is anti-competitive full stop. Threatening de-verification due to links is even worse.

> This is the behavior of monopolists. The FTC and existing anti-trust organizations would do well to return to their jobs and take a look at these practices broadly across the tech industry.

While I am inclined to agree with you, is it anti-competitive to remove phone numbers, etc from apps like Wag or Rover or Airbnb to prevent external communication outside the app?

I personally don't like that but don't think it's monopolistic. Wondering if the two are related somehow.

Re: Instagram Threatened Removal of Verified Status for Posting Snapchat Content

#90

Post by tinkertamper »

ineedasername wrote: post #76
LurkersWillLurk wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also using passive voice. Consider: "We will terminate your verified status for adding links to one of our competitor's sites."

When someone is lying, the passive voice is a very common choice of words. (Source: I took a forensic linguistics course as part of a comp. linguistics program. One of the case studies we looked at was lying-- the data sets were comparing legal cases where documents were available that contradicted testimony, like the Enron case.) Edit: Here's a research paper that talks about it: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/art…

Where can I read more on this?
Post reply on HN