Twitter suspends few fake accounts it verified by mistake

 

Months after restarting its verification program, Twitter on Tuesday said that it mistakenly verified some fake accounts and that these accounts have been permanently suspended by the social media company.

The microblogging site in May relaunched verifications after a years-long freeze on public submissions for the site’s blue check marks, saying only “notable” users would be awarded the badge.

“We mistakenly approved the verification applications of a small number of inauthentic (fake) accounts,” a Twitter spokesperson said in a statement. “We have now permanently suspended the accounts in question, and removed their verified badge, under our platform manipulation and spam policy.”

The verification program was paused in 2017 after it received criticism for being arbitrary and confusing. It said at the time the check mark was being confused with “an endorsement or an indicator of importance”.

Under Twitter’s new verification rules, accounts must have been active in the last six months and fit one of several criteria: government, companies, brands and organizations, news outlets and journalists, entertainment, sports and gaming, activists, organisers and other influential individuals.

 

With agency inputs