Twitter to Launch Verified Accounts

screenshot Of reader LensThis week, Twitter has been dealing with a lawsuit from St. Louis Cardinals Manager Tony La Russa. The lawsuit stemmed over an individual impersonating La Russa on Twitter. There has been no systematic way for Twitter to verify that a celebrity tweeter was real. Until now, that is. Twitter has just announced a verified accounts beta program to make sure there are no more lawsuits of this nature.

Today, Twitter stated the following on the La Russa case:

Reports this week that Twitter has settled a law suit and officially agreed to pay legal fees for an impersonation complaint that was taken care of by our support staff in accordance with our Terms are erroneous. Twitter has not settled, nor do we plan to settle or pay.

The summary: Twitter did not settle, as was reported yesterday, nor are they intending to settle. However, the lawsuit was indeed a trigger for them to announce verified accounts.

So what exactly will the Verified Accounts system entail? Well, according to the Twitter blog, there will be a special seal on any account that is verified by Twitter as being authentic. This seal, which you can see in the image above, will appear at the top right of profile pages. This is targeted toward public officials, public agencies, athletes, and other high-profile individuals.

As to how actual verification will work, it seems that Twitter will look to see if an official channel of the person in question links to his or her Twitter account from a place like an official website. This is a perfectly logical way to verify accounts, in our opinion. Details are scarce on the full plan, though.

The Verified Accounts program will begin as an experiment this summer and will expand as Twitter gets more feedback. We’re glad to finally see a system in place that will hopefully put an end to impersonators and expensive lawsuits.