Twitter to roll out 'Verified Accounts' this summer
Following the filing of a lawsuit by St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa over fake tweets made in his name, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone has taken to the company blog to respond to the suit and detail Twitter's future plans to combat false accounts.
"With due respect to the man and his notable work, Mr. La Russa's lawsuit was an unnecessary waste of judicial resources bordering on frivolous, " Stone wrote in a post that went up Saturday. "Twitter's Terms of Service are fair and we believe will be upheld in a court that will ultimately dismiss Mr. La Russa's lawsuit."
Stone reiterated that the microblogging company suspends, deletes, or transfers control of accounts known to be started by impersonators. He said such action was taken in La Russa's case, and also called untrue reports that Twitter has settled the suit.
Verified Accounts on Twitter will feature a special seal.
(Credit: Twitter)Nonetheless, Stone said the company recognizes an opportunity to improve its customer service, and will experiment starting this summer with a beta preview of a feature, rumored for some time, called "Verified Accounts." These accounts will feature a special seal indicating that they belong to the person (or persons) they say they belong to.
The experiment will begin with "public officials, public agencies, famous artists, athletes, and other well-known individuals at risk of impersonation," Stone wrote. He said the company hopes to subsequently verify more accounts, but verification will begin with a small set due to the resources required.
According to the La Russa complaint, filed last month in the Superior Court of California in San Francisco, one tweet of the now-deleted account read, on April 19: "Lost 2 out of 3, but we made it out of Chicago without one drunk driving incident or dead pitcher." The latter comment was presumably a reference to Cardinals pitcher Darryl Kile, who died in his hotel room in 2002 of an arterial blockage, and/or to relief pitcher Josh Hancock, who was killed in a car accident in 2007.
In his lawsuit, La Russa said the fake tweets were "derogatory and demeaning" and caused emotional distress.
In another recent well-publicized case of Twitter impersonation, tweets allegedly sent from jail by convicted music producer Phil Spector were later determined to have been sent by an imposter.
Leslie Katz, senior editor of CNET's Crave, covers gadgets, games, and most other digital distractions. As a co-host of the CNET News Daily Podcast, she sometimes tries to channel Terry Gross. E-mail Leslie. 
They must void all current reviews. I doubt that would ever happen, so forget Yelp. It has already developed a community culture of accepting jerkwads. Fixing Yelp would be like trying to repair Slashdot or Digg. Forget about it and move on.
Frivolous indeed
Twitter will settle because their new verified account program implies that it's a necessary thing to provide verification that someone is legitimate. That sort of thing can be used in court against them and they're getting some really terrible legal advice if they want to make things ugly and figure out just how flimsy their terms of service will end up. You can't offer a verified account program AND claim immunity from people impersonating others and spewing hateful/libelous statements. If you try to claim common carrier, you can't involve yourself at all without a formal takedown notice. This is going beyond the formality and providing a service... therefore they should KNOW they're going to lose if a judge with any sense looks at a real case.
Suck it up Twitter, you've lost your first battle and you'll lose more if you don't re-think your strategy here.
Just because you can MAKE a website doesn't give you license in being a CARELESS IDIOT on how you do it. Account verification isn't rocket science, yet it's a strategy that wasn't done. MasterDave0 is right; Twitter has essentially admitted that THEY screwed the pooch by introducing account verification now, AFTER someone has already been adversely affected by their prior policy. How much LaRussa was actually HURT by all this is still debatable...but then again that's what the litigation is for.
The amount of overhead this will create for Twitter is huge.
Credit card or utility bill registration is entirely feasible. Twitter is basically a U.S. web service, it would be easy to implement this for private individuals.
The most challenging situations would be public/corporate presences. If you're a pornstar and your credit cards and photo IDs say a different name than what you've marketed yourself by, there's a challenge there.
However, verified registration might be a source of revenue for Twitter.
Twitter is not a porn site! I believe just adult sites should require ID. I am 19 years old but because of my disability I have no credit cards or any age verification so I can't sit there and use it for Twitter. Impersonators has always happened. I always wanted to fake an Osama profile since another guy faked that maniac but got his Yahoo profile deleted for faking a terrorist.
People will always fake and impersonate other famous people. There will always be gossip and rumors but should we force everybody to verify their sources all the time? No cause it's not fun and will create a police state where we have to fake ids just to not be monitored by the govt. or run away from the police state. If we start restricting everything then those who don't have ID will be forced to beg their parents all the time including 16 to 17 years olds. My mom gave me freedom and trusted me but if evevrything has to be verified through credit card it can lead to a lot of abuses and hackers can easily target public service sites to steal credit card numbers.
Remember what Alex Jones said about taxing and restricting the internet!
Also USWGO is a campaign on Twitter, How can I verify a ID for a political coalition?
Would I have delete that account because I represent a political coalition?
Sounds like crushing political dissent to me!
F**k twitter! if they force me to verify my account by ID I'm leaving and taking my campaign elsewhere and if they all start doing this then I'll just not fight the Bilderbergs and let them rape us all including children and enslave our entire planet.
Yep I have to show ID all the time to cops without probable cause, so I'll just let the catholic church as well bring back the crusades and kill people and I'll just let the world die while I'm thinking to myself "I told you all so, I told you so, I told the people that they keep supporting big brother and the upcoming police state, but nobody would listen to me, haha".
There is a dangerous precedent that could be set here. It is the issue of free speech and control of the media.
I tweet about my English Football team Manchester City. If you look at the tweets at http://twitter.com/mancityalerts you will see that it is newsworthy, with comment and analysis. Does that mean that because I am not the Club itself, that I will be prevented at some point from communicating news, or making comment as a someone representing a group of fans? What is the difference between that and a newspaper's 'comment' section?
All Twitter accounts are verified already - by email links. The issue here is one of stupidity over legality and the answer is they are the same thing.
The obvious answer is to have the ability to call your tweet 'Official'. If you want to call it official then you will need to verify. Simple. The current proposal borders on censorship.
RT
www.online-privacy.vze.com
As for the story, verification seems like the right way to go, even if this lawsuit really was frivolous.
Good luck trying to keep their business model going. I might as well pick up a copy of the National Inquirer if sources can't be verified. At least then I won't get spammed.
http://web-design-miami.com/
Its basically digital diarrhea of the mouth. No one cares what you had for lunch, or that you are reading a paper while having your morning coffee.
I think twitter is where those people that cant just shut up go, after everyone walks away from them because they wont shut up.
OpenID + open source + micropayments = death of twitter...
www.borgetsolutions.com
- by ErnieTheBear June 10, 2009 11:50 AM PDT
- If I cared any less about Twitter, I would have to be deceased. The whole thing could go dark in the next 30 seconds, and it wouldn't affect me in any way whatsoever. What a load. Twitter. Feh!
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