Twitter is working on profile tag for ‘verified phone number’

Twitter is working on a tag that will allow users to see that the user’s phone number has been verified. That writes data miner Jane Manchun Wong. Presumably, Twitter wants to combat bots with the tag.

The tag appears according to Wong in the profile block below the personal information and website link, but above the number of followers. A shield with “Verified phone number” next to it will appear here if the user has a verified phone number associated with his or her account.

Wong is more likely to find upcoming features in Twitter’s code. It’s not clear if Twitter actually wants to release the tag and when this would be. It is likely that the tag is intended as an anti-bot measure, with the idea being that the account is less likely to be a bot if the account has a verified phone number.

A salient detail is that a month ago it was announced that hackers could obtain phone numbers and email addresses of millions of Twitter accounts through a bug. That bug was in the Android client and was fixed by Twitter within two weeks. Hackers managed to steal data before the fix and placed a database online last month.

Twitter gets verified phone number tag. Source: Jane Manchun Wong