Twitter wants to restart the account verification process after last year’s backlash.
In a Periscope live, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said that he wants everyone on Twitter to get a verified account. The company had closed down the verification programme altogether last year when it got major backlash for verifying some white supremacists. The company wants to restart the program and would like all its users to get verified in the coming years. However, the company is still trying to figure out a way to do so where they could make the process simpler and without judgement or bias.
As reported by Recode, Dorsey said during the periscope live, “The intention is to open verification to everyone, and to do it in a way that is scalable [so] we’re not in the way and people can verify more facts about themselves and we don’t have to be the judge and imply any bias on our part.”
Adding to that Twitter Product Director David Gasca, who was also on the same livestream said, “The main problem is we use it to mean identity, but because of the way it was originally started, where it was only given to certain very large public figures, celebrities, etc., it came to have a lot of status associated with it, as well.” He explains, “They think of it as credibility. Twitter stands behind this person, Twitter believes that this person is someone that — what they’re saying is great and authentic, which is not what at all what we mean by the checkmark.”
So, it seems like Twitter will open the verification process once again for all users, but the company is still figuring out, how it will implement it. Currently, social media platforms use other social identities, and government issued Photo ID/ Documents. Will Twitter use the same methods? This also leads to further questions such as “how will Twitter verify the number of dedicated troll accounts we have today?”. Moreover, “Will there be an opt-out option as well?”. It seems we might have to wait while Twitter figures things out.
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