Twitter to Let Organizations Verify Associated User Accounts

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Elon Musk announced in a Sunday tweet that Twitter will soon roll out a feature that will allow organizations to identify which other Twitter accounts are actually associated with them.

What this likely means is that organizations will be able to have employee accounts and others that are associated with them marked as verified or, at the very least, authentic. For example, companies will be able to nominate the employees who represent them and news outlets will be able to designate their reporters to be marked as legitimate.

The move comes after the absolute fiasco that has been Twitter’s launch of the new $7.99/month Twitter Blue subscription, which includes a blue “Verified” checkmark. As soon as the new verification subscription became available, accounts started misusing it to impersonate people and brands.

Twitter ultimately had to pull the subscription shortly after launch. Musk has said it will be relisted after Twitter takes care of its impersonation issue.

The platform announced on Friday that it will start rolling out secondary “Official” labels, which were previously scrapped by Musk, to select accounts that represent notable entities. What’s more, extending legitimacy labels to entire organizations or institutions could make it harder for bad actors to impersonate individuals associated with them.

As for what will count as an eligible “organization” and who will be able to create one, Musk said that he sees “no choice but for Twitter to be the final arbiter.” However, the freshly-minted Twitter CEO added that he is “open to suggestions” on the matter.

Responding to a question on how Twitter will handle instances where a person associated with an organization parts ways with it, Musk said that the platform will give organizations some degree of control “to manage affiliations.”

In a follow-up tweet, Musk said that “increasing granularity about what ‘verified’ actually means is the right move.”

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