Twitter suspends handle verification, says it created confusion

Verification of handles on Twitter has been suspended because it “created confusion” among users.
The company made this known in a tweet posted via its support handle.

“Verification was meant to authenticate identity & voice but it is interpreted as an endorsement or an indicator of importance,” the support handle tweeted.

“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.”

Jack Dorsey, the company’s chief executive officer, said they realised the system was broken some time ago and should have informed users earlier.

“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,” Dorsey wrote.

“And we failed by not doing anything about it. Working now to fix faster.”
Twitter verifies handles of influential celebrities, politicians, journalists, institutions and people known to have a huge following.

Such handles get a blue badge with a white check sign on the inside.
Twitter recently expanded the character limit for tweets, increasing it to 280 characters from 140. It has also increased the characters for the Twitter display name.