Twitter verification program comes to a standstill, new policy on cards
Thursday morning was a surprise to most of the Twitter users when Twitter broke the news to remove the verification badges from the site. The decision came on the backdrop of the ongoing mass verification applied by the users to take advantage of the system.
Twitter made the announcement from their official @TwitterSupport account. The decision appears to make concrete a policy that begins in January when the company removed the badge from the account Milo Yiannopoulos and banned him from the service months later.
Verification has long been perceived as an endorsement,” the company said in a tweet. “We gave verified accounts visual prominence on the service which deepened this perception. We should have addressed this earlier but did not prioritize the work as we should have.”
4 / We're working on a new authentication and verification program. In the meantime, we are not accepting any public submissions for verification and have introduced new guidelines for the program. https://t.co/j6P0HGXIVq
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) November 15, 2017
Twitter said that the problem begins in July 2016, when it opened the public verification to let anyone request a verified account. “This perception became worse when we opened up verification for public submissions and verified people who we in no way endorse,” Twitter said.
5 / We are conducting an initial review of verified accounts and will remove verification from accounts whose behavior does not fall within these new guidelines. We will continue to review and take action as we work towards a new program we are proud of.
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) November 15, 2017
However, the company is working on “a new authentication and verification program” and will “not be accepting any public submissions for verification and have introduced new guidelines for the program”.
The scope of the reviews, however, is unclear and Twitter haven’t commented on what will be the new guidelines for the verification.
Twitter, however, promised to remove the verification badges from accounts that violate the rules. Though Twitter navigates the verification battles to come – and whether de-verifying accounts has any effect on reducing harassment and abuse on the platform