Twitter’s messy verification process is making candidates wait
0Reported today on The Verge
For the full article visit: https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/21/21147563/twitter-verified-candidates-super-tuesday-elections-2020
Reported today in The Verge.
Twitter's messy verification process is making candidates wait
On Friday morning, Jeff Sites, a challenger to Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, didn't have a blue verification badge on his official Twitter page. Sites had announced his campaign months earlier, so he should have been verified months ago. It caught the eye of one volunteer named Nancy Levine, who has been monitoring Twitter's plan to verify all 2020 candidates, and has been lobbying Twitter on Sites' behalf specifically.
After speaking with Levine, The Verge contacted Twitter to inquire about the nature of the delay; within hours, the candidate was verified.
Still, the Sites situation illustrates the ongoing messiness of Twitter's verification process, which the platform touts as a key tool in preventing disinformation. Twitter says it has verified 822 candidates since it unveiled the 2020 plan in December, yet still relies on people like Levine, who has no ties to any campaign, to prod them into action.
Here's how the process is supposed to work: Ballotpedia verifies that a candidate is legitimate, either by the candidate contacting them, or reaching out to the campaign. Once Ballotpedia has verified the candidate, it adds them to a list of candidates provided to Twitter on a weekly basis. Twitter is supposed to then double-check the information and give the candidate the blue check mark.
Levine has been keeping an eye on which 2020 candidates are verified and not, and reached out to The Verge Friday morning to point out Sites was still not verified, even though his primary election is coming up on March 17th. Levine has become a watchdog of sorts for candidates' Twitter badges.
She says she's contacted reporters and people at Twitter directly about more than a dozen 2020 candidates, ma