Twitter has progressively improved its verification program after I promptly sent the information to Twitter’s qualified team externally and internally. Twitter managed to gently kick off the automated bots, fake verified accounts, and non-notable handles. Twitter is one of the most leading social networking platforms. Anything that happens anywhere in the world is reported first on Twitter.
Twitter started the verification program in May 2021 for eligible users. As usual, where eligible stays, you discover likely hundreds of so-called people, including bad actors too. People have misused the verification program and applied for the verification, which Twitter didn’t detect earlier. Later after my investigative report Published in EMEA TRIBUNEÂ and their internal investigation, they have removed more than 250+ badges in two months.
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What actually happened?
Few in common were fake handles; few were organically non-eligibles, and half of the active accounts were calling merrily themselves Bloggers. They were not active bloggers or prominent columnists but copied English articles in Urdu and submitted them to the non-notable blog websites & applied for verification. It all started when Twitter announced the verification program in May 2021. People from Pakistan, India, and other countries tamely submitted their applications for the blue badge without thinking about their specific criteria.
As per the official Twitter policy, we will carefully verify prominent journalists or freelance journalists if their news organization account is verified. Someone instantly established a rare account on the official Pakistan Air Force name and instantly applied for verification by sending fake links. Twitter verified it, and later after notifying Twitter, the official badge was instantly removed.
Baaghi TV enthusiastically received a verification checkmark for more than two years. After verification started, local people from Pakistan were massively going to Baaghi tv for publishing their specific columns. More than 30 accounts got the blue badge by Twitter of those who were publishing their columns for Baaghi TV. Journalists from AFP, AP, Reuters, BBC, and other top news websites were denied for the blue badge.
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How Twitter takes action?
Twitter verified the accounts one after another that was scribbling for Baaghi TV. Upon further investigation, I checked they had never authored an article in their life. They all started writing articles after Twitter opened the verification program. I reached out to some of the Twitter employees and produced an exclusive story on it with evidence.
Twitter safety team with public policy managers had started reviewing all the accounts that Twitter verified from May to November 2021. After their review, they found massive fraudulent accounts from Pakistan, India, the US, and other countries that were fake, non-notables, and were selling verification services on Twitter. As per the data Which, I have, Twitter has removed badges from more than 50 handles from Pakistan, many from India and other countries. Twitter also suspended massive accounts from Pakistan that were found to be involved in multiple accounts violations, evaded permanent suspension, and was found to be involved in spamming and hate speeches.
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Few accounts that were verified by Twitter from Pakistan were found to be involved in hate trends, trends against opposite groups, and stopped writing articles. One guy from Pakistan made an account on a Prominent journalist named “Siddique Jan” and Twitter verified it. Later after the Tip-off by me, Twitter removed the badge and suspended the handle.
DJ Kamal Mustafa is a DJ, Music Producer, Pakistani Film Maker & Journalist. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Global Village Space