Verification will very quickly become an issue on Fedi, I believe.

Even now, we have multiple “Linus Torvalds” accounts.

Some have thousands of followers and a few posts, but do we know if any of them are actually him? Including the newest one on .social…?

Obviously Linus should know how to paste a link into a website he owns for verification.

However, if normal users can’t do it, it’s not good enough. What happens when/if celebrities start signing up? They’re not gonna be linking to a website they own for verification.

#Fedi #Fediverse #Mastodon

  • BrikoX
    3•3 months ago

    @BeAware@social.beaware.live I agree that current verification is beyond most users, but I don’t think it matters much for regular posters or lurkers.

    What is your proposed solution?

    Paid verification has issues both from money and personal information security management angle.
    The same is true for “celebrity” verification, as it require storing personal information.

    The easier way to verify identity is to cross-check if they link back to existing accounts.

    • BeAware :fediverse:OP
      1•3 months ago

      @BrikoX@freeradical.zone thats the wrong username you replied to.

      Nonetheless, I’m not entirely sure about an alternative because I don’t know what’s possible. I’m not a programmer.

      There might be a way to do it through other known profiles on other social media sites, but knowing those platforms, they’d block it.

      • @lambaliciousEnglish
        2•3 months ago

        Verification on Masto was solved long ago. Just post the adequate backlink on your site. it’s literally the easiest simplest form available, not too different than “post this verification code in your profile”.

        You are right, other platforms (read: silos) would block or not even allow the system of putting a simple link or control code, but this is actually correct in that it demonstrates the point that this is not those people’s official, verifiable site, it’s the social media owner’s. And thus just as trustable.

      • BrikoX
        1•3 months ago

        @BeAware@social.beaware.live I have no idea why Elk refuses to mention you properly. Might be a bug.

        Relying on 3rd party platforms is far from ideal and like you mentioned unrealistic as it would require API access which would be easily blocked.

        Realistically, I can only think of one idiot-proof verification system. Credit card, but that opens up instances to storing payment and identitity data or outsourcing it to a 3rd party service. Anything else would be user based and require at least some input from them.

        • BeAware :fediverse:OP
          1•3 months ago

          @BrikoX@freeradical.zone the mention is a wrong username issue…it’s social.beaware.live for the domain not just BeAware.live