Twitter, the famous microblogging application launched in 2006 has been one of the most used social media application and only been growing since then. Once widely acclaimed as "the SMS of internet", Twitter rose to popularity amongst the celebrities as well in no time. Officializing the celebs accounts by providing verification to cancel out the risk of impersonation by adding a small blue tick next to their username. Although the process of verification was controlled by Twitter for a long time and there was no peculiar way to apply for it. Only accounts of well reputed celebrities, journalists, government officials or brands were granted verification, and that too automatically.
But a few years back Twitter allowed its users to apply for verification through a series of processes and that's when it started facing issues regarding the authenticity of their verification. When Twitter first opened its verification program publicly, they officially paused the program and worked on the requests secretly giving way to the heat over at the center with the requests.
Finally in May 2021 Twitter rebooted its verification system but closed it again after a few months because of verifying a large number of fake accounts. After almost a month of hiatus, Twitter has finally restarted the the process of requesting a blue badge, with the improved criteria that should be satisfied in order to apply for verification. The criteria that was forwarded by Twitter emphasized on the popularity aspect by outlining that any individual or organization that is applying for verification should have a bare minimum 0.05% of their followers located in the same region. Secondly if any news reporter is applying then they should have a reference from the organization they work for and a link to their authorized website, and the organization that they were referred by should be authorized and well reputed. Thirdly, when submitting their application journalists should either add the specific link to their page or to the articles on the news organization's official website that referred them. Lastly, if a journalist who is not associated to any organization and wants to apply for the verification must present links to 3 different articles published on authorized sites in the past 6 months.
Along with the guidelines, Twitter shortlisted 6 categories of people who are eligible to apply for verification which includes governmental agencies and officials, Celebrities, News organizations and reporters, Influencers, Social activists and Companies yet. Twitter has promised to come up with more categories sooner including technologists, academic achievers and religious scholars.
Twitter has worked harder on this matter than ever before and it is trying to work its way up slowly once again with hopes that the process of verification will move in right direction peacefully without any complications.
Read next: Twitter is working on two new features, “Adaptive Images” and “Playback Speed”
But a few years back Twitter allowed its users to apply for verification through a series of processes and that's when it started facing issues regarding the authenticity of their verification. When Twitter first opened its verification program publicly, they officially paused the program and worked on the requests secretly giving way to the heat over at the center with the requests.
Finally in May 2021 Twitter rebooted its verification system but closed it again after a few months because of verifying a large number of fake accounts. After almost a month of hiatus, Twitter has finally restarted the the process of requesting a blue badge, with the improved criteria that should be satisfied in order to apply for verification. The criteria that was forwarded by Twitter emphasized on the popularity aspect by outlining that any individual or organization that is applying for verification should have a bare minimum 0.05% of their followers located in the same region. Secondly if any news reporter is applying then they should have a reference from the organization they work for and a link to their authorized website, and the organization that they were referred by should be authorized and well reputed. Thirdly, when submitting their application journalists should either add the specific link to their page or to the articles on the news organization's official website that referred them. Lastly, if a journalist who is not associated to any organization and wants to apply for the verification must present links to 3 different articles published on authorized sites in the past 6 months.
Along with the guidelines, Twitter shortlisted 6 categories of people who are eligible to apply for verification which includes governmental agencies and officials, Celebrities, News organizations and reporters, Influencers, Social activists and Companies yet. Twitter has promised to come up with more categories sooner including technologists, academic achievers and religious scholars.
Twitter has worked harder on this matter than ever before and it is trying to work its way up slowly once again with hopes that the process of verification will move in right direction peacefully without any complications.
Read next: Twitter is working on two new features, “Adaptive Images” and “Playback Speed”
