Verified Accounts: What Are They?

Browsing through the list of people you follow?or are following you on Twitter, you'd notice that some of them have this?blue icon with a check mark inside. Accounts with this symbol beside the username are called Verified Accounts. The verified account badge indicates that the user's identity has been screened by Twitter staff and administrators and confirmed authentic; that is, they are the persons or brands they claim to be.

Who Gets A Badge?

Here are some popular personalities and organizations with verified accounts.

Verified account badges are usually applied to highly-sought users in various professional fields, including acting, music, fashion, government, journalism, religion, politics, advertising, media, business and other areas. This is meant to confirm the legitimacy of these accounts and to establish them as high-quality sources of information. (Of course, high-quality is an ambiguous term, particularly for celebrity users.) You will not see the verified account badge when you browse through tweets on your home page and will only see them when you've visited the user's profile page. However, if you're not following the user, clicking on the 'Who To Follow' link on the left side of your home page will lead to a list with the badge appearing beside the username. Here's how it would look if you click 'Who To Follow'. Twitter proactively verifies user accounts regularly to make it easy for the tweeting public to look for accounts they are interested in following. The service is not offered to the general public.