If you're not claiming to be me, then I can't see why you shouldn't be able to use the name xnorswap, especially if that's your company name. I don't own the name, and if you have your own presence under that name, I can't see the issue.
Even trademarks only cover a company's particular domain. See the long history of Apple Corps vs Apple Computers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Corps_v_Apple_Computer
In my view this is how verification ought to work:
- A user writes a bio / about field
- A trust provider verifies that bio is factual
- Any change to that bio will cause their bio to become unverified until it can be re-verified. ( The bio change can be held back until verification can complete. )
- An appeals process exists
How "trust providers" are established without leading to excess centralisation is a difficult problem. This is especially true given that like moderation, it's an expensive thing to do.
There is the possibility of trust-chains such as the way Lobsters works, but there's a exposed to the masses I suspect that people just mass-verify everything without any checking.
In reality you'd be left with one or two central pillars that people trust, and everything else which people don't.
There's also the danger that too much verification leaves new users in the cold. If 90% of genuine users are "verified", then a brand new user doesn't have much chance of making it through filters to become known enough to hope for verification, and will find themselves ignored and effectively locked out. ( This is already the case for some platforms where you're effectively required to give your phone number else end up in the "probably a bot" pile and de-facto shadow-banned. )
