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Instagram Threatened Removal of Verified Status for Posting Snapchat Content

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

#122
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Verified" ceased to be meaningful as actual verification as soon as "unverified" became a thing. I think making it a brand-coloured tick conveyed too much of a positive message so people took it as an endorsement, leading to pressure to "unverify" if that person did or said something bad. Given that action, the "verified" tick then becomes an even stronger signal of endorsement. Perhaps it would be better to call th…

> I think making it a brand-coloured tick conveyed too much of a positive message so people took it as an endorsement YouTube's check mark is a tiny unassuming grey thing, and they're going through the exact same process right now where they claim it's being construed as an endorsement.

I think it's being construed as an endorsement because they seem to be using it as an endorsement. Almost every platform has a very opaque process for how one gets verified, and it seems you need to have 100,000+ followers or be deemed to be important in the society to get your humanity verified.

I researched this for the 2018 Reverse Hackathon run by HackMentalHealth and found that in 2015, approximately 0.05% of Twitter accounts were verified (source: https://medium.com/@Haje/who-are-twitter-s-verified-users-af...). The source above has an even deeper breakdown on the verified users' backgrounds.

If they don't want it to be construed as an endorsement, they could let any user not only apply for verification, but actually verify their identity behind their accounts. Not force, but allow it. This could shift the percentage of verified accounts up to the point where they're not part of an exclusive 0.05% club.

If they keep at it 0.05% of the accounts that they deem to be worthy of being verified, then it sure seems like an intentional endorsement.

(my article: https://medium.com/hackmentalhealth/why-twitter-should-verif...)

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

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What law is being broken? This is their platform to do with as they please. Nobody has a contractual agreement whereby Facebook agrees to host any and all content. They can be as partial and capricious as they desire. That is the price for abandoning open protocols.

"it is forbidden by law to arbitrarily discriminate consumers" (in many countries with a sane legal system) It is a common and stubborn misconception that laws like these somehow do not apply to big (international) tech companies. It is more the product of cultural acceptance of a reality that has existed for long time. Maybe you are right about this, within the USA. But than that would say more about the legal reali…

There's a lot of unstated meaning wrapped up in "arbitrarily" there. You can obviously treat customers differently based on whether they pay or not, and you can obviously have terms that say what you can and can't post on the platform (and apply moderation accordingly). Otherwise you couldn't maintain any kind of forum or communication platform.

Saying you can't post links to other services may be distasteful, but shouldn't be illegal in any reasonable legal jurisdiction.

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

#124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What law is being broken? This is their platform to do with as they please. Nobody has a contractual agreement whereby Facebook agrees to host any and all content. They can be as partial and capricious as they desire. That is the price for abandoning open protocols.

"it is forbidden by law to arbitrarily discriminate consumers" (in many countries with a sane legal system) It is a common and stubborn misconception that laws like these somehow do not apply to big (international) tech companies. It is more the product of cultural acceptance of a reality that has existed for long time. Maybe you are right about this, within the USA. But than that would say more about the legal reali…

Are instagram users consumers or consumed? Isn’t the consumer the ad purchaser?

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

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"it is forbidden by law to arbitrarily discriminate consumers" (in many countries with a sane legal system) It is a common and stubborn misconception that laws like these somehow do not apply to big (international) tech companies. It is more the product of cultural acceptance of a reality that has existed for long time. Maybe you are right about this, within the USA. But than that would say more about the legal reali…

There's a lot of unstated meaning wrapped up in "arbitrarily" there. You can obviously treat customers differently based on whether they pay or not, and you can obviously have terms that say what you can and can't post on the platform (and apply moderation accordingly). Otherwise you couldn't maintain any kind of forum or communication platform. Saying you can't post links to other services may be distasteful, but sh…

As I said: "treat them differently for things they do that are neither an explicit breach of contract, nor illegal behaviour"

In other words: these rules need to be explicitly stated in whatever contract consumer and provider agreed on.

These rules also need to be universally enforced. Rules that are (intentionally or not) written in such a way that they lend themselves for arbitrary application (that is, not equally amongst all consumers) are legally unenforcible. Therefore should be considered null and void. Which then leaves the service provider without any legal justification for their actions under contract law. That's at least how it works in many places, at least outside the USA.

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

#126
post #9
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.

When will Twitter re-open verifying? It's been closed for 2 years...

It's open, it's just that they no longer accept public requests.

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

#128

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…

> When someone is lying, the passive voice is a very common choice of words.

The passive voice was used to write this sentence.

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

#129
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet everyone does not like equally, not by a longshot. We have sites like snopes and polifact. Maybe not perfect, but better than postmodern nonsense like "there is no truth".

This elevation of the credibility of snopes and politifact would make it more damaging when they choose to editorialize. People who share political ideologies with these sites tend to overestimate their accuracy and underestimate their displayed bias.

Or, you know, the truth leans heavily on one side, considering that there's not a single one even remotely relevant fact checking organization on the other one.

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

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"it is forbidden by law to arbitrarily discriminate consumers" (in many countries with a sane legal system) It is a common and stubborn misconception that laws like these somehow do not apply to big (international) tech companies. It is more the product of cultural acceptance of a reality that has existed for long time. Maybe you are right about this, within the USA. But than that would say more about the legal reali…

There's a lot of unstated meaning wrapped up in "arbitrarily" there. You can obviously treat customers differently based on whether they pay or not, and you can obviously have terms that say what you can and can't post on the platform (and apply moderation accordingly). Otherwise you couldn't maintain any kind of forum or communication platform. Saying you can't post links to other services may be distasteful, but sh…

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