Twitter Verification Policy Revamped, Will Be Implemented on January 20 Next Year

Twitter's verification policy has been revamped and it will be implemented on January 20, 2021. The company shared the development through a blog post and stated that it will also start automatically removing the verified badge from inactive and incomplete accounts. Last month, the social media platform revealed its plans to relaunch the verification programme in early 2021 and asked for public feedback that, according to Twitter, has shaped the revamped verification policy. The company had paused public submissions for verification in 2017 because of the confusion it caused.

Twitter shared some key changes that it made to the revamped verification policy that will be implemented on January 20, 2021. For those unfamiliar, a verified account has a blue checkmark next to the username. Twitter said that the two weeks-public feedback period brought in more than 22,000 survey responses that helped shape the new policy. The criterion for a profile to be considered “complete” has been slightly tweaked. Now, an account does not require a profile bio or header image to be submitted for verification. Twitter's references to Wikipedia have been updated for better notability and article quality.

The categories of ‘News' and ‘Sports' will become ‘News and Journalists' and ‘Sports and esports' respectively to be more inclusive. The ‘Entertainment' category will get a reference for clearly including digital content creators. The original policy dictated that for an account to be verified on Twitter, it needs to have a minimum follower count on a per-country basis. The revamped policy changes this to a per-region basis to make it “more equitable across geographies.”

Public feedback will be asked for additional verification categories such as academics, scientists, and religious leaders. Twitter is looking into implementing these, or similar categories next year and till then, people who fall under these categories may qualify under “Activists, organizers, and other influential individuals” category.

Twitter says a complete account needs to have either a verified email address or phone number, a profile image, and a display name. When the policy is enforced next year, the company will start removing the verified checkmark from incomplete and inactive accounts as well. In case an account is at risk of losing its verification, Twitter will send a notification to inform the user of the changes that need to be made.

For memorialised accounts, Twitter shared, “In 2021, we're planning to build a new account type specifically designed for memorialised accounts. This will also come with an updated policy for memorialisation and a new application flow to request the memorialisation of an account.”

Though January 20, 2021 is the date for implementation of the new policy, users will not be able to immediately apply for verification, as reported by The Verge. Twitter will launch its verification application process in early 2021.

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