Post

Interesting meandering drivel.

Sure — but like a news org email, there’s value to the association. And it’s helpful to the reader. What if you could have multiple handles (personal domain and news org domain, for ex) associated w one account? Would that feel better?

With the labeler method, a union could both issue membership labels and attest to employment history, without requiring handle changes (would only be visible to users subscribing to the labeler, so unions et al would have to advertise them)

Would have to be an institution with broadly recognized trust. We saw what happened when someone though verification = give me $8/month. Only incentivized doing no work to actually verify.

But speaking within their professional remit, being authenticated by their publisher seems like a reasonable thing?

there is still a gentleman identified as BuzzFeedBen in my iPhone contacts

This seems like a nightmare in terms of social media policies too. It’s one thing if your employer is in your bio and you have a disclosure… but if your verification is tied directly to your site’s architecture? I don’t know — gives me heartburn, lol.

Hmm. Maybe the Guild should offer a handle?

Your handle is not your primary identifier in atproto, it’s mutable. So yes, whoever controls the DNS registration could revoke your handle, but you could just change it and your account would otherwise be unchanged.

See here: bsky.app/profile/jaco... (and look at Jake's other recent posts too)

did you have any inkling that dude was nuts?

It's bad on so many levels. It doesn't even work for members of Congress. I've had multiple folks from NYT, WaPo, NPR, and more reach out because they want something else. This is evidently not the answer.

bsky.app/profile/pfra...

And the next goal is "...to the whims of an employer *or any corporation*." We should own our own identities, including pseudonyms for different spheres of our lives, should we choose.

There are also a bunch of laws related to profiting of another persons likeness or identify without their consent. For the domain specifically, you would raise a complaint through ICANN's resolution process.

100% you have protection. It's highly illegal to use a domain name to impersonate someone. ICANN do not like it at all. The domain name system relies on trust; the idea you can trust the domain is who it says it is. There are a whole bunch of laws to enforce this.

I think the personal domain name thing works well though. Everyone in the public sphere should buy one even if they don’t actively use it.

I like knowing if a journalist is speaking for their news organization (or at least can potentially be disavowed by them)

Separate work and personal accounts doesn't seem like a crazy idea to me? As a reader, I do very much want to know if someone claiming to write for a given outlet is telling the truth about that, and about whether they're who they say they are.

Especially in the context of journalism sites just absolutely obliterating their domains at a moment’s notice.

lol my immediate first thought was “what happens when they get laid off”

Would unions be interested in doing it though?

FWIW, we're tackling this at @forth.news. We verify the individual reporter, and associate with a publication but that can be changed. The username and profile remains with the journalist. journalists.forth.news