Verified accounts for everyone: Twitter announces new application process

Twitter today announced a new process for those seeking verified accounts.

“We want to make it even easier for people to find creators and influencers on Twitter so it makes sense for us to let people apply for verification,” said Tina Bhatnagar, Twitter’s vice president of User Services. “We hope opening up this application process results in more people finding great, high-quality accounts to follow, and for these creators and influencers to connect with a broader audience.”

As a refresher, the verification badge is a little blue symbol with a white checkmark. It’s designed to verify the authenticity of an account who otherwise might be subject to parody and fake accounts attempting to trick users into believing theirs is the real one. All of us here at TNW, and other popular publications have the verification badge.

Typically the feature is reserved for celebrities, journalists, politicians, and the like, but the new system could extend the verification badge, and additional features to anyone that could be at high risk of impersonation. Aside from the badge, it doesn’t fundamentally alter the Twitter experience or provide any features aside from a verified-only notification system that lets you filter replies to show only verified accounts.

Previously, Twitter had allowed users to apply for verification, but pulled the feature years back, presumably due to the number of new and otherwise non-worthy (spam, parody, etc.) accounts seeking verification. Since then, Twitter has manually verified all accounts, a process done behind the scenes, and without the ability for users to request it.

Currently, only 0.06 percent of the company’s 310 million monthly users are verified, according to a Twitter representative.

The application process will start rolling out today, and should be available globally later in the week. To apply, or learn more, check out the Twitter Help Center.