Twitter’s Verified Accounts Intensify Public Hostility Toward Minorites

For over a year now, at a minimum of three times a week, JK Rowling trends internationally on Twitter, typically after posting some antagonistic or snarky anti-trans status.

Because of her verified status, her remarks are thrust into the timelines of her over 13 million followers, many of whom are indifferent to her literary achievements but align themselves with her heavily publicized, caustic beliefs that she frames as intellectual missives rather than weaponized language and misinformation to used to whip up social hysteria aimed at an already marginalized and threatened community of innocent people.

And she’s allowed to do that. It is certainly her right to hold close to those beliefs and remain deeply committed to them. Yet, her blue checkmark makes her a clear threat to those she routinely attacks.

The blue checkmark on Twitter was originally intended to simply indicate the authenticity of the account owner and reduce instances of nefarious impersonators as well as the risk of an imposter making heinous claims or dangerous statements that audiences might accept as authentic.

The verification policy evolved, over time, into an elitist class system. A social media hierarchy where a small percentage of users, verified ones, are both promoted by…