Angry, disappointed users react to Bluesky's upcoming blue check mark verification system

Something like this unavoidable.
Example, ted cruz the car mechanic in marfa Texas has just has much right to use blusky as ~~professional shit bag~~ senator ted cruz. But hiw do tell the real one from the racid sack of weasels.

mastodon exists

This shitshow sounds familiar.

So long as the checkmark isn't bought through some subscription service, I'm fine with this.
The whole reason why verification exists is because other will steal the name of someone famous and masquerade as them, with real world consequences. A verification system now means that certain platforms and people will get more attracted to be there, and thus Bluesky will grow.
- Unfortunately, the forecast isn't good for the integrity of what should be a simple system. Under Dorsey, the Twitter blue checkmark had already become a tool for showing content approval by Twitter. In various instances users had their status removed based on their content and not on a question of if they were who they claimed to be.

To quote my well known journalist friend after switching from twitter "what's that? Oh, that open source stuff? Hahaha nah bruh, mastodon is silly"
- Reminds me of a meeting my co-worker and I had with the IT staff of a company that is a customer using research instruments in our facility. The meeting was to ask us to enable data synchronization through SharePoint. (We're a Linux shop.) We asked what the issue was with getting their data files with SFTP. They said, "It's open source."
  Then, a few beats of silence as it sinks in for us that there is no next step in the chain of logic. That is the totality of their objection.
- Normies will not go on Mastodon.

This was always bait to keep people using corporate social media instead of decentralizing. I am not sorry for the users one bit.

Bluesky is like a mini example of why Communism does not work. Centralization is a drug.
- Bluesky is literally an example of enshittification under capitalism. Go away
- What exactly a website related to Jack Dorsey has anything to do with Communism lol
  
  Jack Dorsey hasn't been around for a long time.
- You can not make any commentary on Communism here. You will get down voted even if your criticism was correct. Probably even more so and the reason why this is likely to get downvoted out of hand, as well.
  
  perhaps if u make a coherent or relevant criticism this could be avoided
  
  That is ok. I have never had an issue sharing facts that may trigger some. In fact the only reason it triggers some is it hits somewhere deep.

You eeediots!
- Ren from Ren and Stimpy?

idk man I haven't seen anyone complaining about it on Bluesky
This is a net positive, nice to have a social media where verification checks are...actually used for verifying the person behind an account
- Based on how verification was revoked for some users on Twitter based on their content rather than question of their identity, I'm cautious about this system turning into the status symbol it became on Twitter rather than the verification it claimed to be.
- Most of the complaints I’ve seen were about Bluesky’s lack of a formal verification system.
  They could never figure out how the current system of checking the username.
- But isn’t the domain already doing that?
  
  Domains only help you verify organizations and individuals you recognize directly.
  This verification system also allows 3rd parties (it's NOT just bluesky themselves!) to issue attestations that s given account belongs to who they say they are, which would help people like independent journalists, etc.
  
  I feel like domain usernames are still inherently susceptible to phishing, you can get a typo or similar character to try and trick someone that your username is an official one
  
  The problem with domains is that regular people would need to know what a domain is and what verified ownership says about the account in question.
  Even then, reading domains is quite difficult, even for people who know about the topic: Humans are Bad at URLs and Fonts Don’t Matter
  
  I saw some small talk about it, and it really just boiled down to domain verification is great for more tech savvy folks, but trying to get larger accounts (think politicians, celebrities, etc) is a lot harder. Having a visual check, using tools within the app or site, is a lot easier.
  And personally I like the idea of verification checks as long as it remains a simple means to do just that: verify the owner of the account. Morons like Musk and his ilk always thought it was a clout thing, and for a small minority that was probably the case, but by and large before he ruined it, it was great.
  
  If they are, and there isn't anything to display it, how are we to know what's been vetted and what's slipped through the cracks? Especially on a new account?

I do not see anything to be angry or disappointed about?
Verification badge was good, the dumb thing Twitter did was throw it away by letting anyone pay for it.
- Nah it was not good. Domain names already do that and are accessible to all at all times with full transparency and decentralization. Bluesky is literally regressing.
  Even mastodon's verification system is better than checkmarks.
  
  domain names do that for people with well known domain names, and verification processes do that for people without
  
  Far from perfect, but I think it's good to have a layer that very visibly shows 'yes, this is the account you want'.
  Domains are a worthwhile addition, but they run into almost the same problem as usernames and handles. Can be made misleading easily - sure, I could often go to the web address and verify it (if they don't put up a convincing fake site), but that's much lower visibilty.
  Eg, you can probably register nintendo@nintendoamerico.com or similar and get it by some folks just as easily as registering the Twitter handle. There's a payment step to get the domain, but that's about it.
  The centralization problem you mention is a good point though. It was a fine system, if you felt like you could trust Twitter as a verifier. Today obviously, one could not. But Bsky seems to at least theoretically have a 'choose your verification provider' idea in mind, which would (again theoretically) resolve a lot of that issue.

Bluesky, the decentralized social network [...]
Were only one instance exist or did I miss something?
- I think their initial selling point was that Eventually©®™ Bluesky would federate with the rest of the Fediverse.
  Is anybody really surprised that a social media corporation didn't make it their utmost priority to allow their userbase to connect out of their proprietary platform?
  
  They never said they'd do so natively with other protocols - but they support Bridgy, so you already can do that.
- As I understand it, the protocol has the ability to decentralize built in. But the technical requirements are prohibitively high to the point only large businesses or corps could afford to do it. I also believe (someone correct me) the company hasn’t switched on the functionality yet.
  
  Maybe you remember PDS federation not being open for a while, but it's open now.
  Running a public appview can be very expensive, but they're working on making it cheaper to run one with a limited scope.
  
  The biggest thing is that you need to be manually authorized by them for federation. They will only ever federate with servers that arent serious enough competition to lead to democratization of the overall network.
  
  my mom has always told me that I had the potential to work at NASA. but the requirements are prohibitively high
  
  Last heard (a few months ago) the cost is in storage. The protocol isn’t too complicated now, but it generates a shit ton of data, and IIRC you need a minimum of 3 copies.
- You can easily host your own instance with a simple docker stack.
  I dont know of any public instances except the main but I also havent searched.
  
  you can host your own PDS, but everyone is still using the same appview
- Nope, it's 100% centralized.
  
  It's 100% centralized, but with the ability to be decentralized. Sorta like Threads before they started federating
  
  This is a little bit more black and white compared with the other responses. 🙈

Anyone who is surprised that BlueSky is going down the same path as Twitter (X, not withstanding) belongs on BlueSky.
- Even for the internet, this is stupid.
- I think a few more people "get it" every time the cycle repeats, but also, a sucker is born every minute.
- If it ends Elon, I’m gonna allow it. If Twitter fails, his stock in Tesla will have to back it. If that tanks… he’ll have to work his way out of bankruptcy. Just squeeze….
  
  He’s already sold Twitter/X to xAI; he’s got his arse covered when the bottom eventually falls out.
  
  Yeah for the masses they will likely always flock to commercialized easy to use social media that reaches critical mass the fastest, so them being willing to move and keep moving is best we can hope for. For rest of us stuff like fediverse will be there to use.
- Would it be so bad if it follows the same path as Twitter? If it connects people and organizations in an honest and helpful way for fifteen years?
  Or we could all just keep shitting on it while it facilitates social and political movements and enables rapid communication across the planet. Then more than a decade from now when some Ultra-Nazi trillionaire buys it, we can all say "I told you so," and be real smug about it.

The fuck did anyone expect?

I don’t see anything controversial in the article. Did I miss something? Just looks like a way to make sure the public figures and companies you are communicating with are who they say they are.
- I think the existing domain-based verification system is a better way of doing that. Something like Mastodon's verified links might be a nice addition. This more centralized system is... not what I hoped for.
  
  I didn’t sound like a centralized system from the article. More like they want a third party like Verisign or something.
  Something will have to be done as these platforms become more popular to cut down on fraud and disinformation. You don’t want people impersonating other people or organizations, or companies. Even if Bluesky starts federating to other platforms, just knowing that they have a blue sky blue check would be an improvement if you could display that check on other clients like mastodon posts.
  ICANN has already made a mess of domain names so I don’t know if relying on the domain is enough. People are using non-Roman characters to trick people into thinking a website domain is the real thing. Others are buying up all these random domains so you get things like medicare.net and medicare.org and medicare.com etc etc.
  I dunno what the answer is. Just rambling out loud in frustration.
- Verification wise there is already domain. But ultimately, it is too soon for the twitter exodus to get the blue check. All in all, this type of outrage is doomed to repeat with that type of central entity.
- It's stupid rage bait for morons.
- It already has domain verification which is better IMO. Its more reliable and safer as you have to own the domain to use it.

Tbh I've seen more people asking for this than the people complaining.
- There's been a lot of impersonated accounts popping up lately, so it doesn't surprise me they've opted to do something like this.
  
  Oh yeah, they are literally everywhere. And a lot of them are impersonating people that haven't switched from Twitter yet to take advantage of it specifically.
  
  Bluesky already has domain based verification which solves that perfectly, I guess people just don't want to use it.
- How come they don't use the already built in domain verification? It's basically fool proof to certify that an account is owned by a specific entity.
  
  It's what Twitter had and most people on blueksy just want Twitter before Elon. It sucks but that is really what the majority of people even want. They don't care about the decentralized stuff.
  
  I think having both is nice

I'm shocked. Shocked, I tell you.
- Pikachushocked, even.

Decentralized, yeah sure!

I've seen this movie before.

How does bluesky make money?
- Right now, venture capital investments - same as all tech starts out.
  How it'll monetize to become self-sufficient remains to be seen.
  
  Not same as "all tech starts out". You're literally typing on tech stack that didn't start out like that. Then there's Masotodon, fediverse, gnome, kde, linux etc. Etc. - literally almost no good software comes out of VC world statically speaking.
  
  I just saw a group is going to start doing custom feeds with ads inserted. I blocked the account and every single sucker who comes in to say congrats and how excited they are about it. Fuck the lot of them. That said, that's a third party, but also an example of what they could do.
- same way twitter made money.