Twitter reopens verification after 3-year hiatus: check eligibility details

A verified profile on Twitter has a blue tick next to the profile name, and usually drives trust in the person or organisation across social media platforms

Beginning Thursday, Twitter relaunched its profile verification process, which was on hold since 2017. The microblogging platform invited public feedback to develop its new verification policy in November last year.

"We received over 33,000 responses from people during the feedback, just a plethora of ideas and suggestions and overall the response was positive. People perceived our general approach and the transparency well. They liked that we decided to make this detailed criteria public, but we did make some changes as a result of the response. Yeah, we learned a lot. And that was what we published as a final draft in December. And...we're going to continue to update and audit the policy throughout this year," said Sarah Husain, who works with the Policy team at Twitter.

The key driver for Twitter pausing verification in November 2017 was, in its own words, that people found it "arbitrary and confusing". A verified profile on Twitter is one which has a blue tick next to the profile name, and usually drives trust in the person or organisation across social media platforms.

"Over the next few weeks, everyone on Twitter will start to see the new verification application directly in the Account Settings tab. If you don’t see this update immediately today, don’t worry! We're gradually rolling it out to everyone to ensure that we can review applications in a timely manner," said Twitter in a blog post.

The three key eligibility criteria for a person to get verified are that their profiles should be authentic, notable and active. The focus, said B Bryne, who works with the Product team at Twitter, is to verify "notable accounts with high public interest".  

To qualify for verification, a person must fit the criteria of belonging to one of the six categories- government, companies, brands and organizations, news organizations and journalists, entertainment, sports and gaming, activists, organizers, and other influential individuals. Twitter is working to expand the categories to academics and scientists, and religious leaders, later this year.

In addition to the category-specific eligibility criteria, more information about which will be made available by Twitter, an account must be complete in order to be verified. This means a person or organisation should have a profile name, a profile image and either a confirmed email address or  phone number. The account must also be active within the last six months and have a record of adherence to the Twitter Rules.

According to Twitter, a blue badge gives people on Twitter more context about who they’re having conversations with so they can determine if it’s trustworthy.

Once an application for verification is submitted, a person can expect an emailed response from Twitter between one and four weeks. If an application is approved, the person will see the blue badge automatically on their profile. In case the user wants to re-apply for verification, Twitter will let them do so after 30 days of receiving a denial on the previous attempt. There is no cap on the number of times a person can apply for verification, but the gap between reapplication must be 30 days.

Twitter will have a separate team dedicated to looking at verification applications, which has been expanded "significantly for this launch".

"Since our last update, we’ve been doing ongoing research on automated accounts and plan to introduce a way to denote this account type in the next few months, with memorialized accounts to follow. We’re also exploring improvements to the Twitter profile to allow people to better express themselves, such as through an About page," Twitter said in its post.

One of the things that people will be able to put in their "about" section is their preferred pronoun of how they like to be addressed and a confirmed account label (meaning the account has a verified phone number or email).

Who will be eligible for verification?

Accounts that are: 

- Notable

- Authentic - account must be true to who or what it says it is 

- Active - must have logged into the account in the last 6 months

- Complete- must have a profile name, and a profile image

- Confirmed- must have a confirmed email address or phone number

- Compliant- must have a record of adhering to Twitter Rules 

Categories a profile must belong to:

- Government

- News organisations and journalists

- Companies, brands and organisations

- Entertaiment

- Sports

- Activists, organisers and influential individuals

Coming soon:

- Religious leaders, scientists and academics