“We’ve temporarily hit pause on rolling out access to apply for Verification so we can make improvements to the application and review process,” Twitter Verified tweeted recently. “For those who have been waiting, we know this may be disappointing. We want to get things right, and appreciate your patience.” Twitter isn’t completely halting new applications though. According to Twitter lead Kayvon Beykpour, users who could apply for verification before can apply today as well. In other words, those who had access to the verification option in their account settings will not lose it. The company will also continue to review all the existing applications. So those who have already submitted their applications could still receive the verified badge while the program is paused if they are eligible. Just that Twitter will not roll out the option to new users for the time being.
Twitter is once again pausing the rollout of its account verification program
After a gap of three-and-a-half years, Twitter relaunched its account verification program in May this year. But just over a week into it, the company had to briefly stop accepting new applications because it already received too many requests. It resumed the program a few days later after clearing the backlog. However, things seemingly haven’t gone down as planned for the company. It has now paused the rollout once again. This comes just weeks after the company allegedly admitted to having incorrectly verified several fake accounts. Many of the accounts in question were created around the same day and had mostly the same followers. The accounts hadn’t posted a single tweet and also used stock images for profile pictures, suggesting they were part of a botnet. Twitter has subsequently removed the verified badge from those accounts and also suspended them from the platform. However, it appears there’s something wrong with the verification process or criteria. So the company is now pausing new applications for some time to make improvements. We will likely see changes to the verification criteria, or perhaps the internal review process, once Twitter starts accepting new applications again.
