Well, that was fun while it lasted. Just a little over a week after reviving its public verification process for the first time in almost four years, Twitter has already pulled the plug.
On Friday, the company announced that it won’t be accepting any more requests for that coveted blue checkmark until it’s tackled the backlog of applications that’s already piled up. Twitter didn’t name a date for when the process might resume, but it did “pinky swear” that it’ll happen eventually.
We’re rolling in verification requests. So we gotta hit pause on accepting any more for now while we review the ones that have been submitted.
We’ll reopen requests soon! (we pinky swear)
— Twitter Verified (@verified) May 28, 2021
“We’re rolling in verification requests. So we gotta hit pause on accepting any more for now while we review the ones that have been submitted,” the official Twitter Verified account tweeted Friday.
Before relaunching the process on May 20, Twitter hadn’t allowed users to apply for a blue checkmark since the early days of the Trump administration. Twitter suspended public verification indefinitely after it was put on blast for verifying a white supremacist who organised the neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017.
It later reopened the process for companies, brands, news organisations, activists, and organisers so long as they met certain criteria and could provide proof of their identities. But all other checkless plebs were out of luck until last week. And now it seems they’re out of luck again.
Twitter did not immediately respond to Gizmodo’s request for comment about when it’ll resume accepting applications. But it did pinky swear that it’ll be soon, and everyone knows you can’t break a pinky swear. That’s practically against the law.