Verification Was The Answer
No one will say that a failure to do verification properly is what killed social media. Except for me. I believe it’s the main reason for the mess we’re in.
The Financial Times called it a while ago: social media is dead. Some countries are going so far as to ban kids from social media. Opinion writers are suggesting we should all follow suit. Academics are even claiming social media is irredeemably bad for our well-being.
I don’t agree. Okay, I do agree that social media is dead. Kids should have very limited access. And all adults should rethink how they use it.
But I don’t buy the argument that it never had the potential to be a force for good. Because it did. We all saw it – at least those of us who were there early enough.
And who turned up authentically as ourselves.
Twitter was good for years, until it turned bad. And it largely turned bad through neglect and direct attempts to undermine discourse. Instagram was good until Facebook bought it. Other platforms now largely forgotten – like SoundCloud – were also good for a moment, until they lost their compass.
What being “good” meant in all these instances was people connecting with people to create communities. Twitter, Instagram and SoundCloud all bred local meet-ups, where users interacted face to face. Friendships were made. Collaborations were launched. Movements were born. Culture was created.
It wasn’t just an “online thing”. Social media was primarily social. It was a people thing. Social media was a tool for meeting interesting people.
As platforms grew, the issue of figuring out who was being authentic – who was real and being real – became more urgent. Hostility increased. As did misinformation. There was a coordinated effort to undermine the potential of social media as a force for good. It wasn’t just trolls. It was political as well. We didn’t know it then, but we can see it now.
That’s why verification was so important.
Verification started as a way to solve the problem of impersonation. But how something starts is often different from what it becomes. And Twitter was always an example of something where innovations emerged through use rather than design. Retweets and hashtags were all user innovations, not platform designs.
Verification became a way to know who was real.
Verification didn’t confer authority. It recognised activity. The fuel for online discourse comes from the people who share ideas and generate conversations. We talk about influencers and content creators. But they are the most superficial level of social media. Academics, artists, designers, photographers, musicians, scientists, sportspeople – along with journalists and writers – made online spaces fertile and fascinating.
Twitter should have verified far more people. In reality, anyone who posts online as themselves should be verified. Bloggers, photographers, musicians… verify them all. If you post original stuff online as yourself, and you have a public profile that is your actual identity, you should be verified.
Under part-time CEO Jack Dorsey, verification became one of many problems labelled “too hard.” Every aspect of keeping Twitter’s ecosystem healthy was treated the same way for years.
While Instagram verified celebrities, Twitter verified experts. This access to deep knowledge and extensive experience was the thing that made the golden age of social media so special.
Right now, our public discourse is infected with misinformation and could collapse under the weight of a never-ending landslide of AI slop. To overcome this, we need hierarchies of knowledge. The voices of people who know what they are talking about.
Not all opinions are equal.
We also need sincere, earnest and generative conversations. Or at least the chance to have those free from trolls, sea lions and bad-faith actors.
Social media with widespread verification – the kind that Twitter chickened out of introducing – would be fundamentally different. Because real people with real identities and real social accountability behave differently.
Or at least that was my hope for years. Now I don’t know anymore. Maybe it is all broken. No one is going to build the better-for-society version of social media because the harmful-for-society version is so much more profitable.
What I do know is that navigating towards people is the right course. As is seeking out knowledge, expertise and wisdom. Social media isn’t a fact of life. It’s not air or water. It’s a tool. And you can always decide whether a tool works for you. Or not. And, if necessary, replace that tool with something else.
