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Twitter Verified Accounts Announced

Recently we talked about social media impersonators who often damage the reputation of the individual or brand they are masquerading as through slander or false statements on popular social networking sites. Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, in response to a recent lawsuit filed against the micro-blogging platform by Tony La Russa, manager of the St. Louis Cardinals, has gone public and announced the implementation of Verified Accounts. La Russa’s lawsuit asserts that Twitter is at fault for the actions of an impostor account claiming to be the major league baseball manager, under which “derogatory” statements were made that caused La Russa ”significant emotional distress.”
 
Twitter is writing the lawsuit off as frivolous, but they have recognized the need to improve their user experience by cutting down on the number of social impersonators on their platform. As a trial run Twitter is only verifying accounts of the rich and famous, popular targets for impersonators, but may expand the service in the future to businesses and others. While the exact process of verifying accounts has not been released, one method will be to check the official websites of public figures, public agencies, artists, actors, athletes, etc… to see what Twitter accounts they are linking to.
 
Source: Twitter Blog