Because let's say you're Tom Hanks. And you get TomHanks@Lemmy.World

Well, what's stopping someone else from adopting TomHanks@Lemm.ee?

And some platforms minimize the text size of platform, or hide it entirely. So you just might see TomHanks, and think it's him. But it's actually a 7 year old Chinese boy with a broken leg in Arizona.

Because anyone can grab the same name, on a different platform.

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[–] 68 points 2 years ago

Well, what’s stopping someone else from adopting TomHanks@Lemm.ee?

There's over 1400 people solely in the US named Tom Hanks. Tom Hanks The Celebrity does not get patent rights or trademarks or copyrights on the name.

Wanna know which is the Tom Hanks The Celebrity? Check if their profile is authenticated against their personal website, à-la-Mastodon.

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  • [–] 35 points 2 years ago (36 children)

    I presume I'm supposed to care, but I dont, and I don't know why anyone would.

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    [–] 29 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    Tom@tomhanks.com

    A celebrity can host their own domain to prove authenticity.

    So what. On Xitter I can make an account called Tom.Hanks and get the blue mark by paying Elon. Because Tom Hanks has the username Tom_Hanks.

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    [–] 25 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    The fix for this is for the guilds and unions that represent these celebrities to spin up their own instances. The suffix of the username granting the legitimacy.

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    [–] 24 points 2 years ago

    That's a feature, not a bug. Celebrity culture needs to get in the sea.

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  • [–] 22 points 2 years ago (14 children)

    It should work the same as email: you can trust it’s them if the user account is hosted on their own site, or their employer’s, or if they link to it from another confirmed source.

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  • [–] 10 points 2 years ago*

    Yep. Also, aren't there already celebrities on Mastodon? I know George Takei is. Granted, you'd have to know he was @mastodon.social versus mstdn.social so that could complicate things for those unfamiliar with the platform.

    OP's definitely got a point, though.

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    [–] 22 points 2 years ago* (7 children)

    Who the fuck wants celebrities here?

    This is a good thing.

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    [–] 21 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

    Celebrities are going to be shocked when they hear about email

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  • Yes, but you see. Lemmy users generally don't give a flat fuck about what celebrities want.

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  • [–] 17 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    I don't think it's a huge deal, we'll either know they're legit or not. Care to weigh in @MargotRobbie@lemmy.world ?

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    [–] 14 points 2 years ago

    Never heard of email

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  • [–] 13 points 2 years ago

    If you are that famous or worried about trademark, you shouldn't be using someone else's server. Tom Hanks can just buy e.g tomhanks.actor domain and set up the @me@tomhanks.actor AP actor.

    I keep repeating this: the weird part is that we still have all these companies and institutions being okay with depending on someone else's namespace. Having the NYT still announcing their Twitter or Instagram for social media presence is the same as using aol.com for their email.

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  • [–] 12 points 2 years ago (5 children)

    You seem to be under the impression that it’s good if this place grows explosively. It’s not. There’s no VC to pay back here (and thank fuckin god for that). There’s no ad revenue here (again, this is good).

    Also, not entirely sure what exactly to make of the weirdly targeted quip about a Chinese child, but spidey sense says it’s nothing good.

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    [–] 10 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    That's why she hosts her own domain, instead of sending half a million followers to some random fediverse instance.

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    [–] 10 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    I'm not here for celebrities and they will always flock to centralized platforms anyways, since they are all about the views.

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    [+] 9 points 2 years ago* (last edited 1 year ago)
    [–] 8 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Reminds me of ICANN fucking up all the domain names.

    CocaCola.com CocaCola.new CocaCola.drink Cocacola.world CocaCola.bev

    Etc.

    Shameful. One thing that might work for the fediverse is federal institutions running their own Mastadon instances on .gov to move away from announcements on Twitter. You can’t fake .gov domains.

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    [–] 7 points 2 years ago

    I think it might be kind of nice to be Tom Hanks and have the name WilsonsOnlyFriend@lemmy.world and just chat and chill.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Shock: I'm not really Artie Shaw.

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    [–] 7 points 2 years ago

    Account verification is relatively simple, if you have your own website you just add a link back with a special formatting. Problem is, barely anyone applies for self-verification, and several platforms such as Lemmy don't support self-verification whatsoever. I can see why something like a distributed verification agency should be a thing, if we manage to make the implementation less technical for the end users of course.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago

    I see this as a benefit. Generally speaking celebrity posts are the most useless threads on most platforms.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago (8 children)

    Taylor Swift's Twitter handle is @taylorswift13 and it doesn't seem to be a problem for her.

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    [–] 7 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    We had a AMA with Will Ropp, an actor a few months ago: https://lemm.ee/post/31335226

    !movies@lemm.ee

    We verified it was him by having him send us a message from his IG.

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    [–] 6 points 2 years ago

    I have a dream that one day I be part of a platform where one will not be judged by the glamor of their username but by the quality of their discourse.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    We decided to not host any sort of Buy-Sell-Trade community on our hobby instance for this reason. It's a small community so a lot of people know usernames of people they know and can trust. It's very easy for a scammer to use someone's username and say "I'll sell you that thing! Send me $150!".

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I'm on MBin. Your username is displayed as: walden. I can mouse over that to learn that your full username is @walden@sub.wetshaving.social.

    This is the same thing as email domain names and display names. Yes, scammers still exploit that, too, but for the most part, people have gotten used to also looking at the actual full email address, and not just the display name or mailbox name. The same can happen here.

    Still, I would much prefer if the default view here showed the full username and not just the display name.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago

    Case in point.

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