Despite a sweeping removal of the authenticating “blue check mark” from members of the alt-right last week, Twitter has decided to allow a left-leaning comedian who posted “I hate white people” to retain the coveted badge.
Twitter’s blue check mark verification program was intended to confirm the identities of high-profile users, but it has now become viewed as an endorsement from Twitter, according to The Hill.
However, when the checkmark was attached to the account of white nationalists such as Richard Spencer and Charlottesville, Va., “Unite the Right” rally organizer Jason Kessler, outrage from many Twitter users ensued, according to Newsmax.
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In response to the outrage last week, Twitter removed Spencer’s verified account, @RichardBSpencer, that of his think tank, the National Policy Institute @npiamerica, and his online magazine @radixjournal.
Twitter also removed check mark badges from the accounts of several users affiliated with the alt-right or white nationalism.
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Despite the removal of the blue check marks from the white nationalists, Twitter has allowed the badge to remain on the account of comedian and TV writer Rae Sanni who tweeted in September, “Yes. I’m a racist. I hate white people most all of you. You happy now?”
On Sunday her tweet received a reply from blue-check-mark-verified comedian Jason Elia who claimed, “I hate most white people too.”
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The double standard was quickly recognized by social media users, including investigative journalist Laura Loomer who tweeted that she was waiting for Twitter to remove the badges from the accounts of Sanni and Elia, but noted that she would “probably die” before that happened.
Earlier in November, Twitter claimed in a tweet that check-mark verification was meant to “authenticate identity & voice” but it was “interpreted as an endorsement or an indicator of importance.”
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The company admitted to creating “confusion” and said that they needed to “resolve it.”
Last week, Twitter admitted that they gave verified accounts “visual prominence” which “deepened” the perception that they were endorsing select accounts.
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Twitter also acknowledged that the situation worsened when they “opened up verification for public submissions” and verified people who they “in no way endorse.”
Syndicated columnist Ben Shapiro weighed in on the controversy, tweeting that verification should be used “to prevent fraud, not to endorse viewpoints.”
Loomer opined in a tweet, “Sounds like twitter is carrying out its own ‘final solution’ for conservatives” by “Using ‘badge politics’, censoring those who don’t worship twitter’s liberal dictator, & implementing procedures to annihilate conservatives from the Internet.”
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