Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

BandicootKind705 OP t1_iuvkf35 wrote

Reply to comment by DocMachina in Why a Blue check mark is now $8 on Twitter and Elon Musk's Next Steps - A piece of speculative business non-fiction by BandicootKind705

Its not about the amount of money alone, but if the payment systems are authentic, i.e. credit cards etc, then it would be mighty hard if not impossible to create thousands and millions of new IDs, just because the credit card system is hard to fake on such a scale.

3

DocMachina t1_iuvkj9c wrote

That doesn't stop countries like China at all

0

BandicootKind705 OP t1_iuvlghv wrote

Uh...I think it does, actually. I know China is very powerful and so is the US and the big superpowers, but it doesn't mean they can do spells. There's still steps. And steps aren't easy like spells.

4

DocMachina t1_iuvm1vo wrote

Twitter isn't government run. Twitter is just as susceptible to infiltration as Facebook or Whatsapp. Often times the US government has problems regulating these companies due to their own lack of knowledge on computer systems and infrastructure as a whole.

The US government would have absolutely no control on whether not conflicting countries can use social media as a tool for misinformation. Paid subscriptions do not stop this problem.

These countries don't even need to pay the subscription fee to continue to spread misinformation. There is an entire crowd of people who refuse to consume any information provided by actual verified outlets. This is nothing short of another billionaire trying to capitalize off of destablization. Blue check marks do nothing to fight these issues lol

2

themistergraves t1_iuvzb98 wrote

Another idea is that these countries could more or less create millions of accounts that don't have blue checks to follow the accounts with blue checks, and then use those accounts with blue checks to write whatever disinformation/propaganda they want, and then have their millions of accounts without blue checks to re-tweet it.

1

CremeImportant2347 t1_iuw1gis wrote

OP is talking about Twitter eventually becoming a paid service for everyone and how that transition would reduce the prevalence of bots.

I don’t understand the relevance of your first two paragraphs discussing government operation/regulation of Twitter. And your last paragraph doesn’t follow at all from the premise that everyone needs to pay for Twitter. If these concepts are connected to OP’s post then please help us see the connection.

1

DocMachina t1_iuz0csa wrote

He said the US government is too powerful, or something along those lines, for bots to be on Twitter in the case of another country using social media for misinformation.

I said it's happening, right now, with countless other social media platforms. No one is going to rush to Twitter to get accurate news, so charging people to have a blue check mark, that anyone can pay for, doesn't just end bots and misinformation.

I don't see how that was lost in translation

1

CremeImportant2347 t1_iv20a1x wrote

I think you misunderstood his point. His point was that payment requires a certain amount of verification through the banking system which would make it harder to use massive bots to spread misinformation. Government doesn’t have the power to sidestep that process. Hence his comment that they “can’t do spells”.

He never said bots aren’t on Twitter or that the US is too powerful to allow bots on Twitter. That’s how it was lost in translation.

1