Patent ID: 8806598

Claim:
A non-subjective method to authenticate user identities comprising: gathering metadata from at least one discussion involving at least one pre-defined user identity on a first social network to define at least one associated text field provided by the at least one pre-defined user and occurring in the discussion; defining a system generated value to be assigned to each associated text field upon subsequent use in a response by a third party, the system generated value to be applied defined without influence from the third party; evaluating the metadata of at least one third party response related to a posting by the at least one predefined user identity, and in response to the third party using one or more of the associated text fields in the response, assigning the system generated value to each associated text field used in the response, and in the case of multiple evaluated third party responses, for each subsequently used associated text field aggregating the assigned values; and authenticating the at least one pre-defined user identity as a degree of credibility regarding the at least one pre-defined user identity's association to at least one associated text field occurring in the discussion based on the value of the associated text field as developed by the subsequent use of the associated text field in the one or more evaluated third party responses; and providing an indication of authentication for the at least one pre-defined user identity.