On Thursday, Twitter announced that they will be “pausing” their verification system to re-evaluate their process after coming under fire for verifying the account of Jason Kessler, the leader of Unite the Right and organizer of the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., in August.
In a statement released on its Twitter Support account, the company said, “Verification was meant to authenticate identity & voice but it is interpreted as an endorsement or an indicator of importance. We recognize that we have created this confusion and need to resolve it. We have paused all general verifications while we work and will report back soon.”
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey posted a similar note about their verification system, saying, “We should’ve communicated faster on this (yesterday): our agents have been following our verification policy correctly, but we realized some time ago the system is broken and needs to be reconsidered. And we failed by not doing anything about it. Working now to fix faster.”
The popular social media platform that’s home to 330 million active users (and is the preferred outlet for President Trump) grants verification to users they deem to be authentic. Twitter is well within their right to choose who should and who should not be verified according to their standards.
