How to Get Blue Tick Verified on Twitter, Thanks to Update

For the first time since November 2017, Twitter users have a way to apply for the sacred blue checkmark that signifies verification, cachet and clout, as the social network began rolling it out worldwide Thursday. “One of the most consistent pieces of feedback that we’ve heard is that people don’t understand who we verify, and the process seems unfair,” product manager B Byrne said during a press call Wednesday. Roughly 360,000 accounts are currently verified, Byrne added. Wheels were set in motion last November, when Twitter revealed plans to bring back a public application process for verification sometime in 2021 and shared a draft of its policies, seeking public feedback. The policy was updated Jan. 20, with many of the revisions driven by that feedback from users. Verify me Starting Thursday (May 20) and rolling out over the next few weeks, Twitter users worldwide will start seeing an option for verification application within the Account Settings tab. At launch, people must fit the criteria for one of these six categories to be eligible: activists, organizers and other influential individuals; companies, brands and organizations; entertainment; government; news organizations and journalists; or sports and gaming. With great verification comes great responsibility to serve the public conversation.Sarah Husain, Twitter Extensive details on the criteria for each of those categories are available here. Accounts must also be complete, meaning that they contain a profile name, a profile image and either a confirmed email address or phone number. “You really need to understand who you’re engaging with and having conversations with,” project manager, trust and safety Sarah Husain said during the press call. Finally, accounts must be active within the past six months and have a history of compliance with the Twitter Rules. Husain clarified that no seven-day or 12-hour lockouts must have been imposed on those accounts in the past 12 months. Applicants will be notified by email within a few days as to whether they were approved—although Twitter cautioned that this timeframe might be stretched to a few weeks, depending on the volume of applications it receives—and those who are declined can keep reapplying, but only once every 30 days. Tough line on rule breakers Twitter also issued new guidelines on how to keep them verified. “With great verification comes great responsibility to serve the public conversation,” Husain said. As always, all accounts, verified or not, must follow the Twitter Rules. Verified accounts that repeatedly violate the Twitter Rules are subject to losing their badges. Twitter acknowledged that the new verification policy may not represent all people who should be considered for eligibility, and it said more categories will be introduced later this year, with academics, religious leaders and scientists on the list for this summer. “There is no perfect system that verifies only authentic people and keeps all the inauthentic accounts out,” Byrne said. “People think sliding into the direct messages of Twitter employees is part of the verification process,” and Byrne added, “I’m hoping it will finally get people to stop DMing me and asking me to verify them.” Updates on the process will be shared via the @Verified account. Health accounts set the standard Twitter began verifying accounts in June 2009, and Husain noted that the first account to receive the blue check mark was the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as it was tweeting about important health information, and people weren’t sure if they could trust it or not. CEO Jack Dorsey said during a livestream in March 2018, four months after Twitter’s initial verification process was put on hold, “We believe verification is something that is very broken on this platform and something that we need to fix and that we need a much more cohesive view on.” Twitter also said when it shared its updated verification policy last December that it is working on new types of accounts to help people distinguish who they are interacting with, such as automated accounts and memorialized accounts for users who have died, due for release later in the year. Future updates to profiles Designer Andrea Conway shared details on more updates Twitter is working on regarding users’ profiles. “The profile hasn’t been meaningfully updated since 2014,” she said. “Your profile is the first place that people go to see what you’re about. There is a lot of information core to an account’s identity that we aren’t accommodating today. There are so many opportunities here.” Noting that some users repurpose the location field to share pronouns, Conway said new fields, sections and components will be added to the About tab, with pronouns coming first. These updates “would fit into the product today with minimal disruption,” Conway said, adding, “The most exciting part of this work is the potential of scale going forward.”

Platforms

How to Get Blue Tick Verified on Twitter, Thanks to the Platform's Official Update

The social network suspended the process in November 2017

David Cohen

About

Subscriptions

Events

Publications

WORK SMARTER - LEARN, GROW AND BE INSPIRED.

Subscribe today!

David Cohen