Twitter Suspends Verification System As It Develops A New One

Twitter today announced that it has decided to “pause” its verification system following criticism that the company had to face when it verified the account of Jason Kessler, an organizer of the Unite the Right protest. Twitter has thus suspended the process of verifying users on its platform and has said that it’s working on a new system now.

A verified account on Twitter carriers a blue checkmark to denote that it’s an official profile. The checkmark used to be hard to come by when Twitter hadn’t opened up the verification floodgates to its general userbase.

“Verification was meant to authenticate identity & voice but it is interpreted as an endorsement or an indicator of importance,” Twitter said in a tweet, adding that it recognizes that this has created confusion which needs to be resolved.

The company said that it has decided to pause all general verifications as it works. Twitter says that it will respond back with more details about a revamped general verification process soon.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey followed up by saying that “we realized some time ago the system is broken and needs to be reconsidered.” While the company’s agents have been following its verification policy correctly, Dorsey said that Twitter realized that the system was broken and that it failed by not doing anything about it.

While Twitter’s page about verified accounts mentioned that a verified badge doesn’t mean that the account is endorsed by Twitter, it seems that the company is thinking about changing how verified accounts are positioned on its platform.

Adnan Farooqui
Categories: Web
Tags: Twitter