KENYAN PUBLIC FIGURES DENIED TWITTER VERIFICATION
How do you get your twitter account verified? It seems preposterous that there is apparently no official way for public figures and celebrities to get their twitter accounts verified (other than paying).
One of the most prominent people on the twitter verse in Kenya, Jeff Koinange, has a solid 103,000(aprox) -the highest number of twitter followers in Kenya-. He trends in Kenya at least once a week when his daily show “The Bench” comes on. He is active on his twitter, clearly using his handle himself (along with his PR team). So I fail to understand why Wyre, whose @WyreDaLoveChild is a comparatively inactive handle, and has significantly less followers has a verified account. Yet other publicly recognised personalities : Jeff Koinange, David Rudisha, Peter Nduati, Robert Alai etc do not have that blue checkmark cloud to the left of their names. No offense to Larry Madowo, STL or Wyre, but I do believe there are bigger BRANDS than those two men and that lady in Kenya right now.
Well, apparently, getting a verified account can be a little tricky today, but it wasn’t always so.
Verification is displayed to inform other users that the identity of the Twitter user is real and authentic. To distinguish between the actual person and impersonations/parody accounts
Verification program first started in 2009. Back then, any user could openly apply for a verified account. Unfortunately, Twitter phased out the anyone-can-apply method and now hands out verification badges on a case by case basis.
The problem arises because nobody knows anymore how Twitter accounts are actually awarded verification status. Twitter has refused to provide details on how they go about verifying the identity of the person or business of a verified account.
I believe there are many Kenyan public figures that deserve verification. And for only a handful of our public personalities to be verified is glaring proof that this “pick-and-choose” method is not working. Meanwhile some people’s dogs are getting verified because their owner will spend 15,000$ on twitter ads over a period of three months.
What action can we take as twitterverse to see more of our public figures and big brands who actively tweet get verified? Some have suggested sending a tweet or direct message to Twitter’s official @verified account expressing your need for a verified account. However, this account has only one tweet from March of 2010, so who knows whether or not the replies and messages are being read and monitored by Twitter staff.
You could also try sending an e-mail to Twitter through their contact page, but I doubt a verification badge would appear on your account within days. Twitter probably receives thousands upon thousands of such emails a day.
So pretty much, we are back at square one. There is no clear way for users to apply at the moment.
If there’s no application process, how do accounts get verified? Some users find that their Twitter accounts get verified automatically (Raila Odinga, Martha Karua). Twitter has admitted that they proactively verify accounts according to the tweets, personality behind the account, number of followers they attract and how many other users may try to impersonate the account/set up fake accounts.
Well in that case, we hope twitter verifies Prezzo, David Rudisha, Jeff Koinange, KTN Kenya, Ghafla Kenya, Daily Nation, Erik Hersmann just to name a few.
Do you agree? Should we start a petition? Are they being denied due verification? Which other Kenyan’s twitter account to you believe should be verified by now? Sound off in the comments and let us know.
