Twitter plans to relaunch the public verification program in 2021
Twitter Inc on Tuesday released plans for its new policy on how people are ‘verified’ on the site, an area the company has long vowed to revamp to address confusion and criticism over blue tick badges which it uses to authenticate the identity of prominent accounts.
The social media company said in a blog post that it plans to relaunch its verification program, including a new public application process, in early 2021. It said a period of public feedback for the news policy would open Tuesday and run through December 8.
Twitter said it suspended public submissions for verification in 2017 after hearing comments that the program “seemed arbitrary and confusing to many people.” He said at the time that the check mark was mistaken for “an endorsement or an indicator of importance.”
A year later, Twitter said it was putting fixes to the verification program on the back burner to focus on issues such as electoral integrity, although it continued to verify certain accounts, such as medical experts tweeting. about COVID-19 this year.
“Since then, we haven’t been clear on who can be verified and when, why an account might not be verified, or what it means to be verified,” Twitter said in Tuesday’s blog post.
The company has set more detailed criteria for the “main types” of notable active accounts it will check, such as government officials, businesses, nonprofits, news organizations, artists, crews. sportswomen, athletes and activists.
Twitter said it could also verify accounts that meet other standards, such as being one of the most followed accounts in the user’s country and having “notoriety outside of Twitter,” which could be assessed through Google search trends, Wikipedia references, or media coverage. .
The company said it could cut the blue badge from accounts that seriously or repeatedly break the rules, such as its policies on hateful conduct, civic integrity, or glorification of violence. But he said such deletions would not be automatic and would be assessed on a case-by-case basis.
Twitter has also posted grounds for denial of verification, for example, accounts that have been locked out for breaking the rules in the past six months or accounts of individuals associated with hateful content or who have been found to have committed crimes. Flagrant violations of human rights .
Twitter aims to present the final policy on December 17. He also indicated plans for more ways for users to identify themselves with new types of accounts and new labels.
(Reporting by Elizabeth Culliford in Birmingham, England; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
