Verification on Mastodon and the wider Fediverse works differently to most social networks.

[feditips@social.growyourown.services]

Verification on Mastodon and the wider Fediverse works differently to most social networks. Symbols like :verified: or or the word "verified" are NOT verifications as anyone can add them to their profiles.

Verification on here works through special links on an account's official website. You can find out how to create a verified link in this guide:

️ https://fedi.tips/how-do-i-verify-my-account

For example we know @wikipedia is official as their profile has a verified link to their website.

#FediTips

[hisold@toot.io]

@FediTips On my Instance, @arstechnica doesn't look to be verified. It does on mastodon.social though.

[brian@beige.party]

@FediTips @arstechnica

It looks like the @arstechnica account may have lost its verified link status. I’m not seeing it either via the app or the Mastodon website.

[feditips@social.growyourown.services]

@hisold

I'm not sure why this is, it's possibly to do with a cache of an out of date profile on your instance?

But yes if you look on the account's original page at https://mastodon.social/@arstechnica it is verified.

[feditips@social.growyourown.services]

@brian

It is definitely verified:

https://mastodon.social/@arstechnica

I've attached a screenshot.

It's possible your server has an outdated profile for some reason.

[brian@beige.party]

@FediTips

Thanks. Yes, I saw that via another reply to your post. It’s odd that it doesn’t show when I log in to the website via my beige.party account (although your website, for example, does). Must just be a federation quirk.

[feditips@social.growyourown.services]

@brian

Just out of interest, can you see the verified link on @Tutanota when you view it from your server?

[brian@beige.party]

@FediTips

No, I can’t see their verification either, although I looked at another couple of mastodon.social accounts from my server and *can* see their verified link status. Strange!

[feditips@social.growyourown.services]

@brian

Very odd! All I can think is that caches have caused an out of date profile to get stuck on your server. It should update eventually.

Can you see my account's verified link?

[raineyday@mstdn.games]

@FediTips

[feditips@social.growyourown.services]

@raineyday

Hmm... that is weird.

Can you see the verification on my profile?

[raineyday@mstdn.games]

@FediTips

Yes.

[leckse@social.leckse.net]

@FediTips @hisold rel=me is missing.

[feditips@social.growyourown.services]

@leckse @hisold

If it was missing, why would it be showing as verified on mastodon.social?

[leckse@social.leckse.net]

@FediTips @hisold It is missing.

$ curl -s "https://arstechnica.com/" | pup a[href="https://mastodon.social/@arstechnica"]
<a href="https://mastodon.social/@arstechnica" aria-label="Follow Ars Technica on Mastodon">

And their instance runs 4.6.0-alpha which isn’t released yet. So I can’t tell.

[feditips@social.growyourown.services]

@leckse @hisold

Hmm... I wonder if Ars Tech had it when they originally verified but then removed it on a later revamp?

If they never altered their profile then mastodon.social would never re-check the code and it would continue verified, but other instances would recheck it when they federate the profile.

[feditips@social.growyourown.services]

Dette indlæg er slettet!

[feditips@social.growyourown.services]

p.s. If an account from another server doesn't seem to verify on your server straight away, give it some time (for example try viewing it a few hours later).

I just tried various accounts like @greenpeace and @wikipedia which seemed not to verify immediately on my server, but after a while the green tick did appear on my server too.

Each server independently checks the verifications of profiles it notices, and if it's busy it seems to put verification checks in a queue to deal with later.

[raineyday@mstdn.games]

@FediTips

Greenpeace and Wikipedia show up as verified for me, but the other two still don't.

[feditips@social.growyourown.services]

@raineyday

Yeah, I am wondering if the other two have altered their code since they first verified. That would explain why they're verified on their origin server but not elsewhere, as they probably did the verification on their own server long ago when their code was correct.

Once an account is verified, the origin server tends not to re-check, but other servers do.

The verification is still valid, it just won't show up on other servers in that situation.