Another week, another round of you can be verified once again on Twitter. Well, probably until something goes wrong again. Just last month they stopped the verification process for the nth time after it mistakenly gave the blue check mark to a fake account of a popular author. This time they’re back to “rolling out access to request for a blue badge”. But it seems not everyone will be able to apply just yet for some reason so you’ll have to wait for it to appear in your account settings.
The verification process has been a bit of a problem for Twitter the past few years. There was widespread criticism when they verified an account belonging to a white supremacist and so they later on decided to discontinue verifying accounts as they tried to rethink their own criteria and the process. The original plan was to just confirm that it is indeed a public persona or a legitimate brand that’s behind the account but people eventually started looking at it as an “endorsement” of a person or brand.
Earlier this year they finally brought back public verifications only to pause it weeks later as they were fixing some behind-the-scenes things. And then just last month, they had to stop it again as they mistakenly gave a blue check mark to a fake account of author Cormac McCarthy. They immediately revoked it once it was brought to their attention but once again they had to pause it to make sure things like that didn’t happen again.
Now Twitter announced that they have started rolling out the verification process again. If you really want to have that blue check mark for validation or some other reason, you can check your account’s settings menu so you can apply for it. If you don’t see it just yet, you’ll have to go back to your settings every once in a while until you eventually see it. There’s no specific timetable for a complete roll out though.
At this point, people are expecting some future problem again with this process so we have to ask if there’s still some value in getting your account verified. We’ll probably know later on if things go smoothly now or if there’s another round of “why did you verify so and so” outrage on the platform.
