Twitter planning to relaunch the verification program in 2021

Plans were released by Twitter for its new people as to how people get “verified” on the site.

The social media company said in a blog post that it is planning to relaunch its verification program, including a new public application process, in early 2021. It said a public feedback period for the new policy would open on Tuesday and run until Dec. 8.

Twitter said it paused public submissions for verification in 2017 after hearing feedback that the program “felt arbitrary and confusing to many people.” It said at the time the check mark was being confused with “an endorsement or an indicator of importance.”

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A year later, Twitter stated it was putting fixes to the verification program on the back burner to focus on issues like election integrity, though it has continued to verify some accounts, such as medical experts tweeting about COVID-19 this year.

Twitter said, “Since then, we haven’t been clear about who can become verified and when, why an account might be unverified, or what it means to be verified.”

The company laid out more comprehensive criteria here for the “core types” of notable, active accounts it will verify, such as government officials, companies, nonprofits, news organizations, entertainers, sports teams, athletes and activists.

Twitter said it also may verify accounts that meet other standards such as being one of the top-followed accounts in the user’s country and having “off-Twitter notability,” which could be assessed through Google search trends, Wikipedia references or coverage in news outlets.