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Verifying your identity on Twitter will require taking a selfie

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Re: Verifying your identity on Twitter will require taking a selfie

#31

Post by arp242 »

threeseed wrote: post #23
paganel wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Elon's doing so many things that will gut Twitter/X. They've just been on the front-page of all the Western media today, from the FT, to BBC to the NYTimes, they're doing quite all-right. Meanwhile I realized today that I have genuinely forgotten the name of the Twitter clone put forward by Zuckerberg, C...something. Ah, no, I've just googled it now, it's Threads. Yeah, that project is dead in the water.

a) Twitter/X is not doing okay. They are valued at 1/3rd of what the company was purchased at. And their ill-conceived rebrand has seen them plummet on App Store charts indicating that many people don't know that it even happened. b) After its initial peak Threads started to lose users largely because of missing features e.g. web app, search, hashtags, chronological sort etc. One by one these are being added and user…

> They are valued at 1/3rd of what the company was purchased at

That's not really a very useful metric, because Musk paid way too much for it in the first place, and even without that it was probably overvalued to start with (IMHO). Besides, in the end a valuation, especially for a private company like Twitter/X, is not really all that useful and just a bunch of people going "well, I'd pay this much for it, I guess..."

I don't know if Twitter is doing okay or not, but I do know this is not a good metric.

Re: Verifying your identity on Twitter will require taking a selfie

#32

Post by Clent »

paganel wrote: post #12
currency wrote: post #5

Elon's doing so many things that will gut Twitter/X. When he gives up trying, what lessons will he learn? This is my breaking point. I will not give up anonymity on this platform.

> Elon's doing so many things that will gut Twitter/X. They've just been on the front-page of all the Western media today, from the FT, to BBC to the NYTimes, they're doing quite all-right. Meanwhile I realized today that I have genuinely forgotten the name of the Twitter clone put forward by Zuckerberg, C...something. Ah, no, I've just googled it now, it's Threads. Yeah, that project is dead in the water.

Are you a subscriber of the adage, all PR is good PR?

I cannot recall the last time the-site-formerly-known-as-twitter was in the news for positive reasons.

Re: Verifying your identity on Twitter will require taking a selfie

#33

Post by Clent »

chrononaut wrote: post #16
toomuchtodo wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stripe Identity does it for $1.50/proofing request. Not sure what ID.me charges (what Login.gov is pushing out across the federal agency fleet). If you fake it, of course the recourse is the legal system for identity fraud.

> [T]he recourse is the legal system for identity fraud. Is it though? Are there sets of federal or state laws [in the United States] that say you must never misrepresent your identity to a private party (X) if they ask for it? Wouldn't their recourse just be their ToS? What if a retail store clerk asked you when buying toothpaste? I suppose the law would probably be around the fake identities themselves? (e.g. creat…

The mere possession of a fake ID is illegal. Even borrowing an ID is illegal.

Re: Verifying your identity on Twitter will require taking a selfie

#34

Post by monocasa »

cma wrote: post #24
unstatusthequo wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like with AI tools now you could automate this and just enjoy the responses

That could really get under the skin of the AI on the other end.

Hey, the 'A' in 'GAN' doesn't mean adversarial for nothing.

Re: Verifying your identity on Twitter will require taking a selfie

#35

Post by toomuchtodo »

chrononaut wrote: post #16
toomuchtodo wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stripe Identity does it for $1.50/proofing request. Not sure what ID.me charges (what Login.gov is pushing out across the federal agency fleet). If you fake it, of course the recourse is the legal system for identity fraud.

> [T]he recourse is the legal system for identity fraud. Is it though? Are there sets of federal or state laws [in the United States] that say you must never misrepresent your identity to a private party (X) if they ask for it? Wouldn't their recourse just be their ToS? What if a retail store clerk asked you when buying toothpaste? I suppose the law would probably be around the fake identities themselves? (e.g. creat…

I’m head of security at a fintech and working with our fraud team and general counsel to mitigate identity fraud is a component of my work. Statute around this is somewhat robust and effective as long as you put the effort in to pursue.

Re: Verifying your identity on Twitter will require taking a selfie

#36

Post by jasonfarnon »

Clent wrote: post #30
itslennysfault wrote: post #15

This is literally why I left facebook almost 10 years ago. They locked me out and required I send them a photo of my ID. I said, "Y'all ain't the cops... imma not do that" ...but first I drew them an ID in crayon which they rejected, then one in acrylics, one in color pencil, one in pastels, etc, etc... My goal was to make one for each of the 50 states, but I only did like 5 before I got bored of sending them and hav…

Agreed. The only time I've submitted government ID online was for banking sites where it's only online sign up. I am OK with this because I understand this is a requirement set by the same government issuing the IDs with rules around how it can be used. Social media sites have no such requirement. They have no such rules around the collection of this information. They can do whatever they want with it once collected.…

Must be some kind of local rules because I've signed up for accounts (BoA, Discover) and have never submitted a picture of myself (govt issued or not) to a company.

For me the only one that hurt was AirBnB when they imposed the picture requirement. That was a useful service.

Re: Verifying your identity on Twitter will require taking a selfie

#38

Post by VancouverMan »

confoundcofound wrote: post #26
currency wrote: post #5

Elon's doing so many things that will gut Twitter/X. When he gives up trying, what lessons will he learn? This is my breaking point. I will not give up anonymity on this platform.

You’re virtue signaling, plain and simple. No one is forcing you to be verified. It is not mandatory to use the platform. That he’s “gutting” Twitter seems more like something you hope to see, not something that’s actually happening.

> No one is forcing you to be verified. It is not mandatory to use the platform.

I don't find that kind of an argument very convincing. It doesn't seem to hold true in the long run.

In the early days of the web, a username and password were typically enough for creating an account for the web sites that even required an account in the first place.

Then more and more sites started also requiring an email address be provided to create and/or keep using an existing account.

Then more and more sites started also requiring a phone number.

Then more and more sites started also requiring a real name.

Now more and more sites want to see some sort of government-issued ID.

Over time, more and more personal and private information seems to be demanded in order to use many web sites.

Even if some particular piece of information isn't demanded today, it seems likely enough to me that it will be demanded in the future.

Re: Verifying your identity on Twitter will require taking a selfie

#39

Post by threeseed »

arp242 wrote: post #31
threeseed wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a) Twitter/X is not doing okay. They are valued at 1/3rd of what the company was purchased at. And their ill-conceived rebrand has seen them plummet on App Store charts indicating that many people don't know that it even happened. b) After its initial peak Threads started to lose users largely because of missing features e.g. web app, search, hashtags, chronological sort etc. One by one these are being added and user…

> They are valued at 1/3rd of what the company was purchased at That's not really a very useful metric, because Musk paid way too much for it in the first place, and even without that it was probably overvalued to start with (IMHO). Besides, in the end a valuation, especially for a private company like Twitter/X, is not really all that useful and just a bunch of people going "well, I'd pay this much for it, I guess..…

Valuations are important when your business is unprofitable, core advertising revenue has cratered and new revenue streams eg. subscriptions have been a complete failure.

They are what investors will be looking at to decide if Twitter/X heads into bankruptcy or fights to live another day.

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