Jack Dorsey, the chief executive of Twitter, has said its blue tick verification process is “broken” after it verified the organiser of a far-right rally.

The social media company was criticised after Jason Kessler, who organised the Unite the Right rally that sparked violence in the US town of Charlottesville in August, tweeted on Wednesday to confirm he had been verified by the platform.

Twitter’s official support account confirmed that its verification system had been “paused” following the backlash.

“Verification was meant to authenticate identity and voice but it is interpreted as an endorsement or an indicator of importance,” the company tweeted.

“We recognise that we have created this confusion and need to resolve it. We have paused all general verifications while we work and will report back soon.”

Dorsey added: “We should have communicated faster on this: our agents have been following our verification policy correctly, but we realised some time ago the system is broken and needs to be reconsidered. And we failed by not doing anything about it. Working now to fix faster.”

Account holders seeking a blue tick to authenticate their account and indicate it is in the public interest had to submit an online form that included an email address, phone number and website link and a biography that specified “an area of expertise and/or a company mission”.