Twitter is planning to relaunch the blue verified badge on Twitter in early 2021 with its updated policy, which will be helping to find out who is eligible or why some accounts are not able to verify by the Twitter blue badge.
Here what Twitter’s saying about the re-verification process, “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.”
Twitter will start the verification process with these six types of accounts:
- Government
- Companies, Brands, and Non- Profit Organizations
- News
- Entertainment
- Sports
- Activists, Organizers, and Other Influential Individuals
There are more criteria Twitter will proceed to verify accounts, also Twitter will automatically remove verification from an account such as inactive accounts or incomplete profile. Twitter also remove verification from certain qualified accounts that are found to be in repeated violation of the Twitter rules.
“We recognize 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.”
“We know we can’t solve verification with a new policy alone — and that this initial policy won’t cover every case for being verified — but it is a critical first step in helping us provide more transparency and fairer standards for verification on Twitter as we reprioritize this work. This version of the policy is a starting point, and we intend to expand the categories and criteria for verification significantly over the next year.”
[Update: 20 December, 2020] – Here’s the official updated statement from Twitter:
We’ll begin enforcing this policy on January 20, 2021, which is also when we’ll begin automatically removing the verified badge from inactive and incomplete accounts. Our new policy defines a complete account as one that has all of the following:
- either a verified email address or phone number
- a profile image
- a display name
If your account is at risk of losing its verified badge, you’ll receive an automated email and an in-app notification informing you of what changes need to be made to avoid automatic removal of your blue verified badge. As long as you make those changes before January 20, 2021, your account will not lose its badge. We are not planning to automatically remove the verified badge from inactive accounts of people who are no longer living and are working on building a way to memorialize these accounts in 2021.
Under our policy, we may also remove verification from accounts that are found to be in severe or repeated violation of the Twitter Rules. We will continue to evaluate such accounts on a case-by-case basis and will make improvements in 2021 on the relationship between enforcement of our rules and verification. As always, everyone on Twitter is subject to the Twitter Rules, and you can read more about our range of enforcement actions here.
How to apply for verification in 2021
We are excited to relaunch public applications for verification in 2021 through a new, self-serve application process that will be available on the Account Settings page on the web and in-app. The process will include asking applicants to select a category for their verified status and confirming their identity via links and other supporting materials.
We plan to use both automated and human review processes to ensure that we are reviewing applications thoughtfully and in a timely manner. We also plan to give people the option to share demographic information after completing the new verification application so that we can better measure and improve the equity of our verification process. We’ll share more details about the application process soon.
What’s next?
Verification is just one part of our work to help people understand who they’re interacting with on Twitter. We know that it’s not always easy to evaluate the authenticity of accounts on the internet, and that understanding who you’re interacting with is core to the public conversation.
When it comes to helping people trust who they’re interacting with on Twitter, bios, Tweet content, mutual follows, and profile information provides helpful context. This is why we’ve started rolling out profile labels for political candidates, government accounts, and state-affiliated media. In addition to the changes we’re making as we re-introduce verification, we’re also working on new ways to designate different account types, starting with:
- Automated Accounts: Accounts that post to Twitter automatically, also called bots, can bring a lot of value to the service when they share things like earthquake reports or self-care reminders. But it can be confusing to people if it’s not clear that these accounts are automated. In 2021, we’re planning to build a new account type to distinguish automated accounts from human-run accounts to make it easier for people to know what’s a bot and what’s not.
- Memorial Accounts: We know how important it is to preserve a Twitter account in memory of someone who has passed and we’ve talked about building Memorial Accounts before. In 2021, we’re planning to build a new account type specifically designed for memorialized accounts. This will also come with an updated policy for memorialization and a new application flow to request the memorialization of an account.
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