Twitter has likely never seen itself as a more important part of the public dialogue than right now. Donald Trump, the president of the United States of America, uses the service most mornings to broadcast semi-coherent thoughts on everything from Republicans’ botched health-care bill to Mika Brzezinski’s face. Instead of F.D.R.’s fireside chats or Barack Obama’s regular press conferences, we’ve got Trump bleating nonsense at us through our phones at all hours of the day in sporadic, 140-character bursts.

And he isn’t the only one doing so. On Wednesday morning, former Conservative member of Parliament-turned-blogger Louise Mensch, who is verified on the platform, took to Twitter to report the following: “My sources say the death penalty, for espionage, being considered for @StevenKBannon. I am pro-life and take no pleasure in reporting this.” Mensch, who officially severed ties earlier this year with News Corp, where she was the editor of conservative news site Heat Street, now runs a blog called Patribotics, a site consisting of “Investigative journalism and analysis of the Russian hack on America’s election and related topics. Pro-America, pro-democracy, pro-NATO, pro-Russia, anti-Putin.” The tweet about Steve Bannon, Trump’s chief strategist in the White House, it almost goes without saying, isn’t her first uncorroborated, conspiratorial musing on the platform. Mensch says she “absolutely believes” that Russian intelligence planted Hillary Clinton’s e-mails on Anthony Weiner’s laptop; that Russian President Vladimir Putin had Andrew Breitbart killed to allow for Bannon to ascend at Breitbart; and that a number of journalists, public figures, and Twitter users are “Putinbots,” “Kremlin shills,” or otherwise agents of Russia and Putin.

While Mensch has occasionally broken real news, the tweet about Bannon was obviously somewhat unhinged. It also instantly raised questions about Twitter’s verification process: by establishing Mensch as an authority with her 264,000 followers, is the platform also facilitating the spread of misinformation?

Twitter, which has historically been quick to verify accounts belonging to journalists and public figures, officially describes the blue checkmark as nothing more than a symbol that an account is authentic—meaning that it belongs to the person they claim to be and not an imposter. In reality, it means much more: once invite-only, now anyone can apply to become verified. The blue checkmark reads as a status symbol, and creates a sense of legitimacy. You may be more likely to trust a verified account simply because it’s been “verified,” even though the designation signifies nothing more than an account belonging to a person “of public interest.”