For some people who are new to social media, the meaning of a verified account is simply that you have been asked to provide an email or phone number in order to receive a confirmation email that is used to make sure that you are not a spammer. The problem is that it’s no longer a very good way to keep fake accounts and spammers at bay. Hundreds of fake profiles are created on a daily basis at Twitter and this means that anyone can create a Twitter page posing as an upcoming famous star for the purposes of getting thousands of followers and eventually starting to promote all sorts of affiliate links or links to products of their own.
It can be quite easy to make a Twitter page grow if you are pretending to be someone who is famous. The reason why this happens is that thousands of people feel special when they get to post and participate in the tweets that the people they admire are posting. This is the reason why they will like all the pages from their favorite movie stars, musicians and athletes. The problem with this kind of activity is that many people are fooled by fake profiles and they believe that they are actually sending messages to that person when this is not the case at all.
The way that Twitter is going to be making sure that this stops happening with any name regardless of the fame or the lack of fame that a person has, will be by charging a very small fee to those who want their name to be protected by the blue verified arrow that distinguishes celebrities from the rest of the world.
Some people think that this feature is just a rumor because those who have been talking about it are saying that it will be worth as little as $1 per year but this would make it way too easy for anyone to simply pay that fee and pretend to be that person, with some variations on the name or by using the name of a production they made. The implementation of this verification process just seems like it won’t be worth it for Twitter and that is the main reason why so many people are thinking that this is just another rumor that is never going to be implemented. Only time will tell if a verification for anyone who wants it is going to be allowed, but who is going to want to follow someone they don’t know about anyways.
Sharon Callix
Award Winning Social Media Expert
Twitter: SC707Tweets
