Until recently, having a blue check mark next to your name on Instagram or Twitter meant being a part of a rarefied online aristocracy. The companies called it “verification,” and everyone else regarded it as the social signifier. No matter how many likes your photos got on Instagram, or how many re-tweets your tweets got, if you were verified on social, you were golden. Or, at least, culturally relevant.
The social-media companies never disclosed what exactly it took for a person to get verified. Unless you were a famous actor or musician with millions of followers, you had to fight to get it. And people did—they hired P.R. companies, submitted fake I.D.’s, and even posted false articles on the Internet to prove they had what it took.
