Those bold pioneers at Twitter/X have managed to reinvent account verification

In what we can only assume was a fit of jealous pique at Mark Zuckerberg stealing away all the negative headlines and eyerolls that are his by divine right, Elon Musk’s Twitter/X-if-we-have-to-call-it-that announced this week that it’s rolling out a new system where parody accounts will carry mandatory labels, almost like—get this—there might be some merit in a “verification” system for users famous enough that people might try to imitate them on the platform.

Yes, it’s that classic tech bro favorite: Copying something old, calling it new, and then claiming to be a bold and inventive pioneer. You may recall that Twitter actually had a verification system, back in the beforetimes, used for the revolutionary purpose of confirming that people saying potentially newsworthy things (as the platform became a more and more accepted means of disseminating actual information, as opposed to shitposts and lunch orders) were who they said they were. Then Musk bought the thing, and stoked the deep insecurities of low-follow-count chuds by claiming verification had instead become a “status symbol,” which he then turned around and started selling as part of the platform’s subscription plan. The net result was that check marks went from being a first step in confirming identity to an easy way to know who on the platform was worth ignoring. (Also, the company still rolled out gold check marks for very big accounts, because even Musk’s people knew on some level that destroying the ability to tell who people were on the platform was self-defeating.)

For what it’s worth, Twitter already had rules against trying to trick people with a fake account; its safety policies have a whole section on impersonations, noting that parody accounts have to clearly mark themselves. Now, though, the company is instituting a system that will assign parody labels—and attach them to both accounts, and posts. So, yeah: An enormous amount of time and effort to get back to a version of the old status quo, with a slightly different branding on it. God, the future is exciting.