One of the things that annoys me about Twitter is how you can never tell if someone is who they say the are. For example, you go off in search of your favorite celebrity, and when you finally find them (and have gotten excited because they actually have a twitter account), sign up to the follow them only to find out after a bunch of idiotic tweets that Johnny Depp is really a 14 year old boy from Indonesia playing on his mommy and daddy’s computer. (Didn’t really happen!! Really!)
Well Twitter has come to save the day by launching something called Twitter Verified Accounts. What is a verified account you ask? According to Twitter’s web site this is how it is described.
What is a verified account?
To prevent identity confusion, Twitter is experimenting (beta testing) with a ‘Verified Account’ feature. We’re working to establish authenticity with people who deal with impersonation or identity confusion on a regular basis.
Accounts with a Verified are the real thing!
They go on to explain what this means and how to recognize if an account/twitter user is real or not.
What does it mean?
With this feature, you can easily see which accounts we know are ‘real’ and authentic. That means we’ve been in contact with the person or entity the account is representing and verified that it is approved. (This does not mean we have verified who, exactly, is writing the tweets.)
This also does not mean that accounts without the ‘Verified Account’ badge are fake. The vast majority of accounts on the system are not impersonators, and we don’t have the ability to check 100% of them. For now, we’ve only verified a handful of accounts to help with cases of mistaken identity or impersonation.
One thing you can do if we haven’t verified an account you’re wondering about is to check the official web site of the person and see if there’s a link back to their Twitter profile. (Again, lack of a link does not imply impersonation, either.)
Who has a ‘Verified Account’ badge?
We’re starting with well-known accounts that have had problems with impersonation or identity confusion. (For example, well-known artists, athletes, actors, public officials, and public agencies). We may verify more accounts in the future, but because of the cost and time required, we’re only testing this feature with a small set of folks for the time being. As the test progresses we may be able to expand this test to more accounts over the next several months.
Basically if you are not “well-known” this feature is not available to you or your business. (It’s like flying coach and watching the first class passengers fly in luxury and comfort!)
Only time will tell if this works out but I think it’s a great idea. I stopped looking for people, namely the “well-known” people I am interested in because I was sick of getting fake users who basically steal someone’s identity to pretend to be them, bash them or whatever it is they do it for. Maybe now I can find the REAL Johnny Depp. (Seriously, he’s just an example, I wasn’t really looking for him!)
All kidding aside, here is some additional information provided by Twitter about how to recognize if an account is truly “verified” or not.
How to identify a verified account
The ‘Verified Account’ badge will appear in the top-right portion of a user’s profile page just above the name, location and bio—as shown in the screenshot above. It will always have a badge followed by the words ‘Verified Account’ If the verified account badge appears anywhere else on a user’s profile page (e.g. in the avatar or the background) it is not a verified account The verified account badge will also appear next to usernames in the Find People section The verified account badge will have the same color as shown above even if users customize the background of their profile page or change the color in the sidebar See what a verified account looks like!
If you’d to add me on twitter, click here. I love new twitter friends! (as long as I don’t get a bunch of spam type tweets).
Happy FRIDAY!
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