Twitter's testing out a Verified Phone Number label

[FP1997]

Twitter's testing out a Verified Phone Number label

Now confirmed to be in the works, Twitter is currently working on a Verified Phone Number label. This will appear as a badge on user's profiles much like the verified 'tick'. Twitter front-end engineer Jane Manchun Wong tweeted out an example of the label.

What does it mean?

A Verified Phone Number badge on a users profile will indicate a genuine account, as opposed to a bot-generated one. It will essentially replicate the verified badge for government officials, celebrities and business accounts, sitting underneath profile information as a label.

IMG: an example of how the Verified Phone Number label will look.

Why is this happening?

This is an important move for Twitter. When Elon Musk made the move to buy out the social media giant, a number of concerns were raised over the amont of spam accounts the tech mogul had. This move will allow users to add much-needed context to their profiles, and provide an element of peace of mind for the average social media user browsing on the site.

Linking to an account also means that you can filter out prominent tweets and pull out macro-made accounts and posts that don't make it through the quality filters. Twitter allows you to create multiple accounts using the same phone number, like a throwaway Reddit, so developers will be working to ensure automated accounts are highlighted. This means that you'll be able to see if there's a human behind each post you're seeing. 

What should I do?

Sit tight for the moment until this development makes it out into testing. If you're unsure how you feel about it, ask yourself the question: "if I were going to rent an Air BnB, would I want the landlord's account to be verified?" 

Securing user's data is an important motion to develop. Displaying a Verified Phone Number label opens up the question of how Twitter's privacy mandates will hold up against information-miners. Using two-factor identification in user profiles (email and phone number) is one way to ensure information posted on social media actually comes from humans. But it's unclear at the moment as to whether this would be rolled out to the wider public, or just retained for public figures such as government officials.

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