I hate that blue checkmark beside names of people I don’t know. If you think you’ll get viral with your Twitter verified and $40 on a sponsored tweet about who you are and what you like, you’re wasting your time. I hate it when Facebook comments come from profiles of people with that stamp of legitimacy beside their name, commenting useless drivel like “Very informative article!” or “Nice! Will share with my associates.” It reeks of Silicon Valley middle management SEO BS. Just like the comment, man. You just want to show that stamp that your Facebook profile is verified. Big whoop. You’ve just become another node on the big data minefield. Now they’re sure they know who you are.

But I get why some people have it. Some people are really that important that their social media accounts mean something more than an empty vacuum that sucks their lives. There are actually more options available to verified accounts compared to us unmarked plebs.

But now those options are available to the common folk, you and me, to “improve the quality of Tweets you see by using a variety of signals, such as account origin and behavior.”

Two simple settings to give you better control over your Twitter experience. https://t.co/pEJuMUhCYspic.twitter.com/jmFd0rDoV6

— Twitter Support (@Support) August 18, 2016

You can now filter who you get notifications from, and you can also filter what you see to avoid “low-quality content,” which Twitter defines as content that looks automated or duplicated. The added features aim to address issues of harassment within the Twitter community that the company hasn’t directly addressed in recent history.

If you’re planning to get Twitter verified, blue checkmark and everything, you’re going to have to put in some work; the verification process is still as rigid as it was before. Not like we’ve tried. And failed.

Photo from japantimes.com