The power of the blue tick: Twitter may open up verification to all!

The micro-blogging site had run into trouble last year over verification badges.

Photograph: Dado Ruvic/Reuters

Twitter's chief executive officer Jack Dorsey recently revealed that the company was working on a policy to allow any user to become verified. Announcing the move in a Periscope live stream recently, intricate details of the process were yet to be confirmed.

'The intention is to provide open verification to everyone and to do it in a way that's scalable, where Twitter is not in the way, people can verify more facts about themselves and we don't have to be the judge or imply any bias on our part,' Dorsey was quoted as saying.

Twitter had first added the blue checkmark to indicate verified profiles, which was conventionally given to celebrities.

Subsequently, the company began verifying other high-profile figures, including journalists, which made the checkmark perceived as a status symbol on the platform.

In 2016, Twitter allowed anyone to request verification but asked users to justify the same. Therefore, unless they were established writers, creators, or influencers, the average user was often denied a blue tick.

However, in November 2017, the micro-blogging site announced that it would soon suspend verification badges for some of its verified users, in lieu of the misconceptions hovering around its verification procedures.

Further, the makers stated that a new verification procedure was being laid down in order to curb the hue and cry around the same.

Dorsey further noted that the policy was being developed keeping in mind the importance of one's identity and anonymity.

Twitter, he said, doesn't enforce a real name policy to ensure that the platform is a safe space for someone to speak their mind without sharing identifiable information that inflicts any threat upon their lives.

Furthermore, the Twitter chief stated that his team is working on improving detection of parody accounts in order to prevent the spread of fake news.