Twitter’s messy verification process is making candidates wait
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
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...