Twitter has now confirmed that the company will allow users to request verification. The development comes more than three years after the company had stopped the verification request service. The newly revamped verification policy will go into effect from next month, i.e. January 2021.
For the uninitiated, Twitter had halted its verification service in the year 2017 after the company had verified an account of a white nationalist. Even though the verification service was officially stopped, it was available for people who had direct access to Twitter employees.
As per the new changes, the company will now allow users to request verification in the “account settings” section of its app and website. Twitter has said that exact details for the process will come at a later date, but that it will use a combination of automation and human reviewers to evaluate applications.
Twitter had said that it would evaluate verification requests from users in several categories, including government officials, journalists, brands, as well as prominent individuals and organizations from the sports and entertainment industries. There’s also a category for “activists, organizers, and other influential individuals,” for those who may not fit neatly into the other categories.
Apart from this new verification process, Twitter is also working on adding new labels for bots and memorialized accounts that belonged to people who have since died. It recently acquired Squad, a screen sharing and video chat platform, and something related to that could also be announced next year.
