Twitter has announced plans to rollout verification to everyone who is able to verify facts about themselves in an aim to improve the “health” of its service, with CEO Jack Dorsey reiterating that the blue checkmark was never meant to act as an endorsement or add any type of status to accounts.
During a 45 minute long Periscope live stream Twitter said that their end-goal for verification is to create a system which users can verify facts about themselves to gain a verified Twitter handle, not necessarily for Twitter to be the judge of who can be verified, removing any bias on its part and revamping the system which currently requires the company to individually select users for verification.
Although Twitter didn’t specifically mention what “facts” will be needed for their updated verification system, it’s likely the company will require things such as other social profiles, drivers licenses, telephone numbers and more.
The intention is to open verification to everyone,” Dorsey said from a conference room at Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters. “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.
The team who joined Dorsey during the Periscope live stream said how the new verification system is just one of the ways Twitter hopes to improve the “health” of its service…
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. – 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.
In 2016 Twitter started to accept verification requests from the public however was later removed after Twitter faced backlash for verifying several controversial figures, including members of the so-called alt-right movement including Richard Spencer, Jason Kessler and Laura Loomer.
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