Twitter announced on Thursday that its new verification guidelines are now available to the general public. Twitter’s blue badge, which is one of the most coveted in the social media world, is what distinguishes any account of public interest or public figures from the rest.
The social media company said it will start displaying the new verification application directly in the Account Setting tab to all users around the world in the next couple of weeks. From there, you will be able to request for verification by submitting your application. You will receive a response by email between one and four weeks after submission; this, however, depends on how many applications are in the queue at the time.
“Today’s application rollout marks the next milestone in our plans to give more transparency, credibility and clarity to verification on Twitter. Below, we share more about this application process and what’s next in our work to help people understand who they’re interacting with on Twitter,” Twitter wrote in a blog post.
Twitter has spelt out certain minimum requirements that must be met before one can qualify for the blue badge. These requirements include; your account must be complete, [you must have a profile name, a profile image and either a confirmed email address or phone number], and your account must also be active within the last six months and have a record of adherence to the Twitter Rules.
Towards the end of last year, Twitter had promised to roll out a new verification process in January—this did not happen though. Among changes touted at the time are more lax information requirements to get verified, more regular and defined categories for the blue badge, and new guidelines around when a verified account may lose its blue checkmark if an account is inactive or has violated its policies.
Categories to be verified include: government officials—this category of users continue to benefit from Twitter’s case-by-case verification, brands, nonprofits, media outlets and journalists, organizations, celebrities, sports-related accounts, and many more which will be opened from time-to-time.
Twitter’s new verification policy was built from feedback the company received from various users. In a blog statement issued at the time, the social media giant said:
“Public feedback has become a critical part of our policy development process by making sure our policies reflect the global nature of our service and the people who use it. In the two weeks during our public feedback period, we received more than 22,000 survey responses and learned so much about how we can improve our policy.”
