Twitter has shared plans to apply its sought-after blue verification badge to accounts that share “credible updates” on COVID-19, announcing that the company is considering a new way to take public verification suggestions for handles that represent health organizations and reputable figures.
In an effort to make trustworthy information easily available on the platform, Twitter says it is working with partner institutions like the World Health Organization to identify accounts that should be verified.
Verification would allow tweets from qualifying accounts to appear more prominently on the Twitter platform, thus making it easier for users to find credible news stories and updates from expert sources.
Twitter says accounts that represent health organizations and/or reputable figures should have the email address on their account associated with an authoritative organization or institution and their bio should reference (and link to) the institution they are associated with, and that the page they are linking to should include a reference back to their Twitter account.
“We’ll likely share a link to an intake form soon for experts to fill out to request verification too– just working on way to better separate likely noise from signal,” said Twitter product lead Kayvon Beykpour.
In 2016 Twitter, started to accept verification requests from the public however, it 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.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said in 2018 the company plans to rollout verification to everyone who is able to verify facts about themselves in an aim to improve the “health” of its service, but has since remained quiet about the future of the blue verification badge.