Twitter wants everyone to get a blue verification badge

david nganga

March 10, 2018 1:19 PM

Blue check marks for everyone

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has announced plans by the company to offer its blue-check-mark verification badge to more of its users.

Speaking during a Periscope livestream on Thursday, Dorsey said the company is working on a new process to verify people's identity and ensure credibility.

“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 news comes less than a year after Twitter was taken to task for verifying neo-Nazis and other hate group members. Twitter responded by making rapid changes including removing blue check marks from accounts they found in violation of new and old Twitter guidelines.

Dorsey however admitted the current system is "broken," in part because in becoming a status symbol, the checkmark began to be seen as a form of endorsement.

"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,” Dorsey said.

The social media platform is in the meantime trying to figure out how to verify people and also what verification means.

david nganga