I’m asking because I don’t really know.
On Sunday, while you were doing whatever you were doing on Labor Day weekend, Hillary Clinton’s Twitter intern was doing this instead:
I'm excited to sign up for @Verrit, a media platform for the 65.8 million! Will you join me and sign up too? https://t.co/bOLSMyk6bG
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 3, 2017
Oh. A media platform, you say? For “the” 65.8 million? Oh, I get it, that’s the number of Americans who voted for her, and who have shared her abject humiliation for the past 301 days. Verrit is some sort of media platform for them.
So, what happens when you go to Verrit.com? Well, you’re presented with a page of, I dunno, I guess they’re little cards? They look like this:
Each little card has a quote or factoid of some sort, and there are buttons to download it or post it to Facebook and Twitter. And each card has a “verification code,” which you can check to make sure the card actually came from Verrit.
And if it did come from Verrit, that proves… um…
Wait, who’s creating these Verrit cards? Who’s verifying that they contain authentic quotes, or accurate information, or any information at all?
Bryan Logan, Business Insider:
In an interview Monday, Verrit founder and CEO Peter Daou told Business Insider what he hopes to accomplish with the site.
“We’re in a time now where you just no longer trust anything that you’re reading,” Daou said. “Facts are now in question. Reality is now in question.”
“So we want to do something where we rigorously vet these facts and we actually stand by our research and put an authentication code on every fact that we put up,” he added.
Oh. It reminds me of Tommy Lee Jones in No Country for Old Men. When asked if a story he’d told was true, he replied: “I couldn’t swear to every detail, but it’s certainly true it is a story.”
One group of Internet pranksters has already created a Verritifier that allows you to create your own fake Verrit cards, with fake “authentication codes.” Like this one!
— Jim Treacher (@jtLOL) September 5, 2017
And the great thing is, the information on fake Verrit cards is every bit as falsifiable as the “real” thing.
I have no idea why anybody would want this service, or if it even qualifies as a service. But Mr. Daou seems like a lost soul who’s trying to find some purpose in his life ever since Hillary Clinton lost, so maybe this will give him some comfort.
Don’t mind us, Peter. We’re laughing with you. Even though you’re not laughing.
