There’s been a recent firestorm surrounding the Twitter de-verification of The Fabulous One, Master Milo Yiannopoulos. I’ll probably write up a column on all that later on, because the media aspect of this has been amazing to watch. It’s truly taken off in almost every way imaginable. As a result, I was sent a tip the other day via email ([email protected]). In it, I was pointed to a place that allegedly sells Twitter verifications. The email itself had suggested me trying to buy one in order to show you all how crooked the Twitter team truly is, but I don’t have the money laying around to waste on a prank at this moment. Still, in light of the recent news, I thought it would be worth it to come show you all the info I’ve gathered here on the site.

Keep in mind, a lot of these people are most likely scammers. However, some sound more real than others. Also, and I’ll talk about this in a minute, the verification process could be had in a much simpler way that trying to buy it from some possibly shady individuals. Let me show you the pics and archives first, then talk about that after.

(archive list)

Now, as I said, some of these guys sound more legit than others. Undoubtedly, there are some scammers in the mix above. Still, there does seem to be some merit with some of the post, especially the last one. In case you didn’t know, there is one surefire way to get verified, and that is by spending shitloads of money with Twitter itself. Adland talked about this just the other day…

But then I also found this article at Digitaltrends, where they explain how they lost their blue checkmark. They stopped advertising on Twitter. When they reached out for an explanation of where their Verified mark vanished to, Twitter responded to them with this:

“Verification is something we offer our active advertisers meeting the $5K/month minimum spend associated with our Platform Partnership.”

“…If you were to re-visit Promoted Products further down the road and were able to meet that $5K/month minimum, this verification would be reinstated.”…

Those little blue “verified” check marks have become status symbols. And while verified accounts aren’t officially for sale, Twitter advertisers who spend a minimum of $15,000 over three months can get one, according to a media publisher who has been trying to get his magazine’s account verified.

So it’s clear, the ways you get verified at Twitter is either is via that mystery friend at Twitter, or the magical “twitter picked you” because you are Kim Kardashian, or you simply pay your way to the blue checkmark. But as Digitaltrends discovered twitter can still remove your checkmark when you stop advertising. So it’s not just Milo Yiannopoulos who gets his checkmark revoked, while Twitter points to their rules and decline to further elaborate on what he did wrong, Digitaltrends lost theirs because they didn’t pay the ‘protection money’ so to speak. I wonder, Does Kim Kardashian and Madonna pay for their marks? I bet not.

It seems the biggest frauds are Twitter themselves. Color me un-surprised. If you have loads of cash to waste, you too can have a little blue checkmark! Money talks, as they say. You would think that Twitter would be a little less brazen with this sort of thing, but then you have to remember: they can hardly make any money as it is. Selling out in this manner is one of the few ways they have to get quick cash.