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Business News/ Tech-news / News/  Twitter rolls out application process for verified accounts
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Twitter rolls out application process for verified accounts

One requires a verified phone number, a confirmed email address, a bio, a profile photo, a header photo, a birthday, a website and tweets set as public for verification

Verified accounts allow people to identify key individuals and organizations on Twitter as authentic, and are denoted by a blue badge icon. Photo: AFPPremium
Verified accounts allow people to identify key individuals and organizations on Twitter as authentic, and are denoted by a blue badge icon.
Photo: AFP

If you have a Twitter handle, you can now request your account to be verified, and be the owner of the coveted checkmark, usually reserved for celebrities and high-profile public figures. Twitter Inc. announced this update on Tuesday, rolling out an online application process for any Twitter account to receive a verified status.

To apply, your account must have the following details:

A verified phone number, a confirmed email address, a bio, a profile photo, a header photo, a birthday (for accounts that are not company, brand, or organization accounts), a website and tweets set as public under the Tweet privacy settings.

Verified accounts allow people to identify key individuals and organizations on Twitter as authentic, and are denoted by a blue badge icon.

The badge appears next to the name on an account’s profile and next to the account name in search results. It is always the same colour and placed in the same location, regardless of profile or theme colour customizations.

An account may be verified if it is determined to be of public interest. Typically, this includes accounts maintained by public figures and organizations in music, TV, film, fashion, government, politics, religion, journalism, media, sports, business and other key interest areas. “Our goal with this update is to help more people find great, high-quality accounts to follow, and for creators and influencers—no matter where they are in the world—to easily connect with a broader audience," said Tina Bhatnagar, Twitter’s vice-president of User Services in the blog post announcing this update.

Twitter was the first platform to introduce account verification, starting in 2009, and currently has close to 187,000 verified accounts. The @CDCgov was one of the first Twitter accounts to be verified in order to help citizens find authentic and accurate public health information straight from the source. Among the other first accounts to be verified are @NASAArmstrong, @KimKardashian, @Oprah, @MilwaukeePolice, @SF311 and @TonyHawk.

It’s unclear why Twitter is opening the verification process to the public. The checkmark has often been seen as elitist, something that creates unnecessary division between celebs and normal people. Also, there is a huge disparity between the number of verified accounts (187,000) and the total number of Twitter accounts that is around 310 million monthly active users. Moreover, Twitter has grown notorious for abuse and spam and verification gives the user the option to filter out mentions from unverified accounts, bots and trolls.

And for those wondering if trolls will be able to verify their accounts and thus game the system, Twitter expressly says that when submitting a request to verify an account, it will ask for additional information.

—If the account represents a person, we want to understand their impact in their field. If it represents a corporation or company, let us know their mission.

—When providing URLs to support your request, choose sites that help express the account holder’s newsworthiness or relevancy in their field.

—We may request that you scan and upload a legible copy of your government-issued ID (such as a passport or driver’s licence) to confirm your identity.

The application process, which started rolling out from Tuesday, will be available globally this week.

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Published: 20 Jul 2016, 02:35 PM IST
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