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this is/was important because people can copy someone's profile pic and come up with a username that's close ie @elonmmusk

this used to be a big deal because people could steal celebrity handles. that's why many famous accounts start with @theReal...

celebrities being reachable on twitter is a big part of the appeal. anything that helps them to protect their brands is good for business

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this is just companies thinking they can scale w/o customer service. If you work in ecom, you'll know that businesses like amazon and ebay have been tackling (with varying success) verifying manufacturers and so forth. My competitor does not instantly get a brand store under my company name. I think facebook has largely dealt with fake accounts purporting to be businesses as well. It's a human problem, not a technical one

That works because there's money involved in the accounts. Where does the money come from to manually verify all the socmed accounts?

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