When Twitter verified Jason Kessler, a white supremacist, in 2017, it received immense backlash. Due to this, the social networking service had to suspend its verification program. Nearly 17 months have passed but the program is still on hold…or not? According to Mashable, several accounts have been verified in the last few months including those of the parents of Twitter’s CEO, Jack Dorsey.
It certainly doesn’t make Twitter look good, especially at a time when the company claimed that it’s trying to be more open about its rules. While the company is not accepting any new verification requests at the same, it still continues to verify hundreds of accounts.
Twitter acknowledged Mashable’s findings and confirmed that it is still verifying select accounts, by working closely with its teams and trusted partners. Twitter also assured everyone that its focus is on introducing a new authentication and verification program.
Although Twitter hasn’t provided much details regarding how many accounts has it followed over the last few months, there is a method to find that out. Twitter’s official handle automatically follows every account, once it is verified. Thus, coupling this with third-party Twitter analytics platforms, the number of verified accounts over a specified period can be determined.
Mashable utilized the services of FollowerWonk analytics platform to find out the number of verified accounts over the last 3 months (up to 28th March) and the number turned out to be a whopping 13,767.
SocialRank (another analytics service that only keeps track of net follows) suggests that from 20th November, 2018 to 9th April, 2019, Twitter’s official Verified handle followed nearly 10,259 accounts. It should be noted that this is the net total.
Last but not the least, SocialBlade service revealed that the number of verified accounts from 12th March, 2019 to 9th April, 2019 is 2,772.
Whether the data from these services is fully accurate or not, it is enough to confirm that the “Pause” on Verification program, is misleading.
Twitter’s verification program initiated in 2009 and the “blue checkmark” was mostly granted to celebrities and other public figures. In 2016 however, the company introduced an application process, encouraging everyone to apply for verification. This led to a huge increase in the number of verified accounts, with an average of 219 accounts getting verified every day.
Twitter realized that the process wasn’t an ideal one and that the verification checkmark lost its specialty. This, combined with the verification of Jason Kessler, caused Twitter to put a hold on the verification program to work on a new and more efficient one.
Verification has a lot of advantages such as social media influence and it can also save you from impersonation, as it is nearly impossible to report impersonation without verification and with a name that is different from the legal name.
Despite Twitter continuing to verify multiple accounts, some well-known personalities have failed to get their accounts verified, even after filing a request. It is high time Twitter figures something out to fix this issue.
Read next: Understanding Twitter's Timeline Algorithm To Make Your Brand Stand Out In 2019 [infographic]
It certainly doesn’t make Twitter look good, especially at a time when the company claimed that it’s trying to be more open about its rules. While the company is not accepting any new verification requests at the same, it still continues to verify hundreds of accounts.
Twitter acknowledged Mashable’s findings and confirmed that it is still verifying select accounts, by working closely with its teams and trusted partners. Twitter also assured everyone that its focus is on introducing a new authentication and verification program.
Although Twitter hasn’t provided much details regarding how many accounts has it followed over the last few months, there is a method to find that out. Twitter’s official handle automatically follows every account, once it is verified. Thus, coupling this with third-party Twitter analytics platforms, the number of verified accounts over a specified period can be determined.
Mashable utilized the services of FollowerWonk analytics platform to find out the number of verified accounts over the last 3 months (up to 28th March) and the number turned out to be a whopping 13,767.
SocialRank (another analytics service that only keeps track of net follows) suggests that from 20th November, 2018 to 9th April, 2019, Twitter’s official Verified handle followed nearly 10,259 accounts. It should be noted that this is the net total.
Last but not the least, SocialBlade service revealed that the number of verified accounts from 12th March, 2019 to 9th April, 2019 is 2,772.
Whether the data from these services is fully accurate or not, it is enough to confirm that the “Pause” on Verification program, is misleading.
Twitter’s verification program initiated in 2009 and the “blue checkmark” was mostly granted to celebrities and other public figures. In 2016 however, the company introduced an application process, encouraging everyone to apply for verification. This led to a huge increase in the number of verified accounts, with an average of 219 accounts getting verified every day.
Twitter realized that the process wasn’t an ideal one and that the verification checkmark lost its specialty. This, combined with the verification of Jason Kessler, caused Twitter to put a hold on the verification program to work on a new and more efficient one.
Verification has a lot of advantages such as social media influence and it can also save you from impersonation, as it is nearly impossible to report impersonation without verification and with a name that is different from the legal name.
Despite Twitter continuing to verify multiple accounts, some well-known personalities have failed to get their accounts verified, even after filing a request. It is high time Twitter figures something out to fix this issue.
Read next: Understanding Twitter's Timeline Algorithm To Make Your Brand Stand Out In 2019 [infographic]
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