FediTips has moved!May 1, 2022

PSA: The "verified" symbol you see on Twitter etc means absolutely nothing on Mastodon or the Fediverse. On here, symbols like  are just custom emoji that anyone can use and put after their name. Don't be fooled! 😁

There are ways to verify your identity on here, but the  symbol is not one of them.

The easiest way to verify your identity is if you have a website that people already know is yours. You can paste a special code into your website which will verify your address and it will turn green on your Mastodon profile (see here for instructions: https://mstdn.social/@feditips/106274105538953001).

Alternatively, you can set up a server as a subdomain of your known website address. For example, the European union set up their own Mastodon server at https://social.network.europa.eu, and we know it really is the EU because the server address is part of the EU's well-known europa.eu domain.

#MastoTips #FediTips #Mastodon #Fediverse #Verification

Fedi.Tips (@[email protected])

You can (sort of) verify your identity on Mastodon if you own a website. 1. Go to Edit Profile > Appearance > Profile Metadata, add your website address (including https://) to the metadata section. 2. Copy the verification code into your website's code. (The verification code is next to the Metadata section) 3. Click "Save Changes" after you have done all of the above. Your website will then be listed on your profile with a green background and a tick next to it, proving you are the owner.

Mastodon 🐘
Show threadDarrenMay 1, 2022
@feditips In my opinion, that's a horrible system. People know to look for the check mark for verified accounts, and all this does is confuse people. If you want Mastodon to grow, stuff like this needs to be changed.
Show threadFediTips has moved!

@darrsil

I know it seems like a "why change something that works?" situation, but there is an important reason for verification working this way.

Simple check mark systems require a central authority which could then be bought out by Musk or Zuckerberg or Google or whoever. If that happens, they could use it as leverage over the whole network (e.g. "We'll only verify people who are on our own approved servers" etc).

The point of verifying identity through website ownership is that it doesn't require any central authority, so there is no way for such a system to be bought out by nasty people.

Once you get used to it, website ownership is pretty good at telling you who is real, and it keeps us safe from rich megalomaniacs.

May 1, 2022 at 4:30pmWeb