Twitter plans to relaunch verification in 2021

Twitter will relaunch account verification on its platform with a revamped verification policy in 2021, the company announced on Tuesday.

“We plan to relaunch verification, including a new public application process, in early 2021,” Twitter said in a blog post.

The social-media major had paused its public verification program three years ago “after hearing feedback that it felt arbitrary and confusing to many people”.

It had then deprioritised it further “to focus on protecting the integrity of the public conversation around critical moments like the 2020 US election”.

Calls for public feedback

Twitter has now released a draft of its new verification policy calling for public feedback. The new policy defines “notable accounts” more clearly and mentions various criteria for accounts to have and retain their verification badge.

“This policy will lay the foundation for future improvements by defining what verification means, who is eligible for verification and why some accounts might lose verification to ensure the process is more equitable,” Twitter said.

“We’re starting by more clearly defining some of the core types of Notable Accounts that are served by verification. Per the proposed policy, “the blue verified badge on Twitter lets people know that an account of public interest is authentic. To receive the blue badge, your account must be notable and active”, it said, clarifying the policy further.

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It has identified six types of accounts that can be eligible for verification. This includes Government accounts, Companies, Brands and Non- Profit Organisations, News, Entertainment, Sports and Activists, Organisers, and Other Influential Individuals.

As mentioned above, select accounts such as inactive accounts or incomplete accounts will lose their verification badge as per the new policy.

“We recognise that there are many verified accounts on Twitter who should not be. We plan to start by automatically removing badges from accounts that are inactive or have incomplete profiles to help streamline our work and to expand this to include additional types of accounts over the course of 2021,” Twitter said.

The entire draft policy can be viewed on Twitter’s website. The microblogging platform is calling for public feedback on the policy through a survey. The public feedback period is from November 24, 2020 to December 8, 2020.

Twitter aims to introduce the final policy on December 17, 2020, and relaunch the verification program by early 2021.