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Comment by lrae | Hacker News Reader

> 2) let verified accounts choose to only (or mainly) interact with other verified accounts

That is already a thing if you are verified and one of the reasons why "blue checkmark for $2" (Elon's plan) won't work and will make many verified people unhappy. They don't want even more peasants and "cloud chasers" in their verified timeline.

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Hence different color. I also don’t agree. I think most blue checkmarks equally hate the spam and anonymous hate. In a public square, we can tell you’re a robot or if you’re not and say vile things, you’re unlikely to stay anonymous.

Yes, I'm all for adding layers of social friction, or frankly, reducing the emotional distance. I remember reading a book, I think called On Killing, talking about the psychology of war and violence. In it, he mentioned how it gets easier to kill from a larger emotional distance. Or in other words, it can be harder and harder to harm someone the closer we feel to them. Being able to put on a digital mask and act as a persona can lead to this (it can also lead to opening up more, too), but I at least want to know if someone is wearing a mask or not.

I think the challenge is "verified" = celebrity, or verified fame, and really I want it to equal verified humanity. Maybe that means the verified humanity gets a different name, who knows. There could be two tiers, allowing the verified famous people to interact with each other and others to just know who went through the KYC process.

Yes. But the opacity on how to get verified is ridiculous. And Twitter has used revoking a blue check mark as a punishment. As if the person that was once verified is no longer verified. It’s ridiculous.

Yeah, it has confused me that it's easier to verify one's humanity on dating apps than it is on Twitter.

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