Twitter is working on a way for people to request a blue checkmark, again

One of Twitter's most inconsistently applied features will hopefully make more sense in the near future.

Jane Manchun Wong, who frequently reverse-engineers apps to discover upcoming new features, figured out that Twitter is planning to give users a way to request verification. The social network then confirmed the development to TechCrunch. What this means is that regular folks will be able to ask Twitter to give them a blue checkmark to verify that they are, in fact, themselves.

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It's not totally clear yet how exactly this will work, but Twitter told TechCrunch the plan is to make its still-unknown guidelines for verification publicly available for the first time. That means if a user requests the checkmark, they should already have a decent idea of whether or not they qualify before submitting the request. Twitter has never been especially transparent about this before, nor did it commit to a rollout date for the new feature.

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The verification process has been something of a roller coaster over the years. Twitter used to verify anyone it felt was a noteworthy public figure, but in 2016, the site launched a request feature not dissimilar to this new one. Then, in 2017, after the site gave a checkmark to white supremacist Jason Kessler, it got rid of the feature — vowing to fix it without specifying how it would change in the future.

Speaking from experience, the old request system felt like a roll of the dice. I submitted my personal information for verification back in 2016, when I was just a tech-writing intern fresh out of college. Twitter granted me a blue check without explaining why. In hindsight, that probably shouldn't have happened.

It's baffling that Twitter hasn't been more transparent about this until now, but the change will be welcome.