Charging for verification ticks sucks — Here’s why it’s such a bad idea.
What has the world come to! We have to pay to be heard and get social recognition? Are we that insecure? May be some are. May be many. But are they that desperate that they’ll pay to solve for that insecurity? That’s what Musk is hoping for!
Blue checkmarks were created to solve for impersonation. Show me how it does that. Forget $8. I’ll pay you a million !
Why do verification marks exist?
Ever thought about why verification tick marks were introduced on social platforms in the first place? Well, it was to fight impersonation. Yes, that’s the core problem it solved. Millions of users come to social platforms to stay connected with their favourite influencer — be it a politician, musician, entertainer, sports celebrity or a social media influencer.
Given how easy it is to get followers by impersonating a big person, social platforms needed to help users find the right influencer. And the best way to do that was by giving a mark of authenticity to these accounts in the form of a very visible verification tick mark. That’s how and why verification marks came to fore. To help users.
It’s been over a decade since we have been used to seeing these tick marks across certain profiles and it’s become a status symbol. So much so that everyone wants one. Because the supply was restricted only to notable personalities who had done some work to deserve it. Today it’s something that a few can brag about.
What’s wrong in charging for a verification mark?
This week, we saw another major social media company launch paid verification in a few countries. There are many issues when a verification mark becomes paid:
- A user who pays for it, actually has no real need for the tick mark other than to brag. It’s not like there are millions of searches for the common man.
- A notable personality who doesn’t pay for it, doesn’t get the tick mark, opening up the possibility of their account being impersonated — leaving the core issue unsolved.
- It’s the responsibility of the platform to solve for impersonation and neither the users nor the influencers should have to pay for such a service. Impersonation can be solved through simple algorithms.
- Without manually verifying the identities of those who pay for this verification mark, impersonation has not been kept under check — the main reason why tick marks exist becomes the biggest source and reason for impersonation. Recently a journalist impersonated a US senator by paying for Twitter Blue. Imagine how dangerous this could be.
- When Twitter Blue subscribers comment, their comments are shown above the comments of those that didn’t subscribe — killing meritocracy on the platform. In short this makes it a ‘pay to play scheme’ rather than allowing the best thought to win through meritocracy.
- Users who subscribe for this verification are looked down upon by the community because they are trying to buy something that was earlier earned — opening them up to attacks and trolls by the community who doesn’t subscribe for it.
Why are they doing it if it’s such a bad idea?
Because it can generate revenues. Hopefully!
Is it doing that? Actually, no. If publicly available numbers of Twitter Blue subscribers is to be believed, it is nowhere close to expectations. If just 300K people subscribed for it, that makes is $30 million a year @ $100 a year per subscription. Nowhere close to the advertising revenue Twitter lost from lack of focus on content moderation, making Twitter an unsafe space for the majority.
In the hope of a large gain, the company has philosophically disconnected with a very important stakeholder — the influencers. They will be open to rampant impersonation and the only hope for them to fight it is by paying. It’s not about the amount. It’s about the philosophy of having to pay for something that should have been provided to them anyways as a safety feature.
What’s Koo’s stand on all of this?
Koo is the second largest microblog in the world. Our views are diametrically opposite that of Musk’s.
We believe that platforms need to be inclusive. Inclusive in thought and action. Everyone should gain from its existence. By definition, platforms enable interactions for all stakeholders and let users take over. Creators add value by creating. Users add value by spending their time. Influencers add value by sharing personal updates and responding to fans. Media adds value by broadcasting information to the larger world. All these stakeholders should gain. Creators should be enabled to make money. Users should be rewarded and thanked for their time. Media should be given the respect they deserve for being the largest source of reliable information. And influencers need to be given the safety their accounts need in terms of impersonation and fake news attacks through proactive content moderation efforts.
Is this happening? Only on Koo. Every solution above is at play on Koo. Not on other public social platforms.
Koo is enabling creators to make money. It is rewarding users with Koo coins that can be exchanged for brand vouchers. It showcases media houses & journalists so that they can be discovered and get followers easily. It gives free lifetime verification to influencers, proactively fights impersonation and fake news through its in-house algorithms. And works with policy makers to ensure that users are kept safe within the ambit of local laws, thus respecting every country’s legal framework.
The beginning of the end?
We will see that every time a platform loses its user focus, they will philosophically disconnect with the larger community and create more disincentives than incentives. A public social platform needs to act like a public good, irrespective of its ownership structure. It’s the nature of the service. The more inclusive it is, the higher the adoption. Creating a public social platform is probably one of the biggest services that can be provided to democratic communities and has to be done through a responsible architecture keeping every stakeholder in mind. It needs to be transparent, responsible, fair with a user-first and fairness-first focus rather than a company or owner-first focus.
There are many creative ways to monetize platforms without disincentivizing the very users that made the platform what it is. This may just be the beginning of the end.
First published in Times of India
