Twitter is launching its new verification policy on 20th January 2021 after halting the formal application process for more than three years. The new policy is part of feedback from user responses after Twitter confirmed in November 2020 it would be relaunching verification for its users.
People who want to get verified will still have to wait a bit longer as Twitter will not begin accepting the application in January. A Twitter spokesperson told The Verge that applications will open at some point in early 2021.
The new policy will, however, take effect on 20th January 2021. The company also says the date is when it will begin removing verification badges from inactive accounts and those that don’t meet the new requirements.
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The new changes to Twitter’s verification policy include more lax profile information requirements to be eligible for verification. There’ll be more defined categories for verification badges, and new guidelines for conditions that could make a verified account lose its blue checkmark if inactive or if found in violation of Twitter’s policies.
The new verification categories will include government officials, companies, brands, and nonprofit organizations. The company has, however, been verifying government officials on a case-by-case since putting a halt to the official process. It will also include media outlets and journalists, entertainment figures and organizations, sports-related accounts, and an “activists, organizers and other influential individuals” category. Twitter says it’s open to expanding its list of categories over time.
Twitter plans to introduce a way to label accounts that are either automated or once belonging to a person who has died sometime next year.
“We are not planning to automatically remove the verified badge from inactive accounts of people who are no longer living, and are working on building a way to memorialize these accounts in 2021,” Twitter said in a blog post.
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The company says “this will also come with an updated policy for memorialization and a new application flow to request the memorialization of an account”.
Also, Twitter plans to, in the future, differentiate bot-run accounts from human-run ones. It says this is “to make it easier for people to know what’s a bot and what’s not”. Twitter says the human-run accounts are not at risk of losing their verification if they follow its verification guidelines. They include having a verified email address or phone number, a profile image, and a display name. Twitter plans to inform accounts at risk of losing their badge what they need to change.
Twitter is also reserving the right to remove verification for any account. “Under our policy, we may also remove verification from accounts that are found to be in severe or repeated violation of the Twitter Rules. We will continue to evaluate such accounts on a case-by-case basis and will make improvements in 2021 on the relationship between enforcement of our rules and verification. As always, everyone on Twitter is subject to the Twitter Rules, and you can read more about our range of enforcement actions here,” it says in the blog post.
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