Twitter’s woes over its verification process seem to be never-ending. The highly coveted blue checkmark has proved to be troublesome for the social networking site as mistakes have been made and the process has been reviewed over and over. We thought they had finally ironed out some of the kinks when they reopened it this year but months later, another major error has caused them to temporarily pause applications once again. It may be back to the drawing board after they mistakenly verified a fake author account.
Let’s backtrack a bit about the whole Twitter verification issues from years ago. Back in 2017, they gave the blue checkmark to the account of a known white supremacist which as you can guess did not go over well with a lot of users. They justified this by saying that the verification was a way to “authenticate” who the person was behind the account but the general opinion was that the blue checkmark was an “endorsement or indicator of importance”.
This led to Twitter suspending the application process for verification and they just gave the blue checkmark on their own to those that met their own standards. After four years, they introduced their new verification rules last December 2020 and then just last May, the verification requests feature opened up again. It was only a limited opening though as only “notable” users and brands could apply to get verified.
They paused it almost immediately because of the sheer number of applications but later on opened it up again. A few days ago though, Twitter mistakenly gave a blue checkmark to an apparently fake account that was being attributed to Cormac McCarthy. When they were called out for it they immediately reversed the decision. However, there was no explanation as to how this fake account was able to pass through the system.
We’ve temporarily hit pause on rolling out access to apply for Verification so we can make improvements to the application and review process.
For those who have been waiting, we know this may be disappointing. We want to get things right, and appreciate your patience.
— Twitter Verified (@verified) August 13, 2021
The official statement is that they’ve “temporarily hit pause” so they can improve the application process and review it as well. “We want to get things right and appreciate your patience,” the tweet read. Well, some have been patient enough so let’s see if they will indeed wait even longer.
