Twitter is already pausing public verification

A mere eight days after announcing the restart to its long-paused Bluecheck verification process, Twitter announced on Friday that sorry, it’s been swamped with requests and will temporarily ignore new applications from users until the backlog has been addressed.

Until this past respite, Twitter hadn’t allowed members of the public to apply for site-wide verification since the start of the Trump administration (after they went and verified an actual Nazi). In December, the company implemented new rules for who can be verified and what Twitter’s verification process will look like. Journalists, brands, government officials, activists and other publicly recognizable internet personalities were to be fast-tracked for approval assuming they could provide evidence — in the form of a government ID, company masthead or professional profile referencing their social handle — that they were what we thought they were.

There is no word from the company yet as to when the process might reopen to new applicants though we do have a legally-binding pinky swear that it will eventually happen.