When we first started talking about VITY, as an abstract concept mind you, we knew there were a LOT of challenges ahead of us. Lots and lots and lots and lots. So, we did what anyone would do and started procrastinating immediately. BBQs and beer FTW! We went to Casa de Ponca (the official VITY hangout), grilled up some chicken and veggies (organic, of course), and had some patio time. And that’s when somebody, I can’t recall whom, brought up the obvious, “How can we keep people from pretending to be somebody else in VITY”?

  And that’s a sobering question. I know because I instantly sobered up and started pondering. How   can we ensure Social Influencers are really who they say they are? I mean, building a marketplace is one thing, but identity fraud protection? That’s a toughy…

  But we cracked it; there’s no chance of   anybody being on VITY that didn’t authorize it. Nobody. Best of all, everybody on VITY is 100% confirmed to control the social networks they’re advertising. In this article, I’m going to go into detail on how VITY does this and, hopefully, give some peace of mind when it comes to hiring our influencers.

The oAuth Flow

  This is our primary weapon against deception. In a nutshell, the oAuth Flow requires that the Social Influencer, essentially, log into VITY through their social network. For example, logging into VITY with their Twitter account. We send you to Twitter, you log into Twitter (or are already logged in), you confirm VITY can access your Twitter data, Twitter sends you back to VITY, then VITY can pull your Twitter data. Pretty bullet proof actually. 

  Well, sort of. Let’s be honest, if somebody can access your Twitter account, for example a hacker, they could setup a VITY account using your identity. Still, it’s the 21st century and we all know to protect our username and passwords (NEVER EVER SHARE YOUR USERNAME AND PASSWORD!!!!!).

Now, in order to use the oAuth Flow, the social network in question HAS to offer oAuth login for their service. And most that VITY connects with do. Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube, and Facebook, all offer oAuth login. Add to that, their REST APIs and VITY has a valuable resource for identifying who’s who and preventing fraud. 

But, as Granny always said, “not all social networks are created equal”. And for those, we have…

The Alternative Flow

And then there are those social networks that just want to be walled gardens in the worst way. Networks like Vine and Snapchat don’t offer oAuth login (nor an official API but that’s another annoyance). So for those situations we get a little old school; we use people involved in the process (I know right??!?).

Let’s be clear; VITY manually verifies your account. With people. For example, when you say, “I want to connect my Vine account to VITY”, you fill out a form, tell us your details, post a comment on a Vine video from VITY’s account, and a human being on the VITY team will verify you once you’re done. Easy peasy.

Not elegant and certainly not pretty; but it’s by far the most efficient and user friendly solution.  And it works for the same reasons the oAuth Flow works; you have to do something with your social network that we can verify.