Facebook starts verifying high-profile accounts

Social networking giant Facebook today announced that it has started a new feature that allows users to identify official pages and profiles of celebrities, brands, journalists, businesses etc. Microblogging website Twitter already has this feature, called Verified Accounts. 

As part of this initiative, Facebook will add a Verification Badge to the profile/page in question, so that users are assured of authenticity. The company said, "There is no action required for Page admins to add a verification badge. In the coming days, we will automatically verify the largest Pages on Facebook that are at the greatest risk of duplication. At this time we cannot accept verification requests for all Pages." 

Official pages and profiles that do not get the Verification Badge (a small blue-coloured tick mark) can contact the company via its help centre to address the issue. They can also report fake profiles and pages to Facebook. 

The new Facebook Verification Badges will appear alongside the name of the page/person, when users hover over the name of a page, in search results as well as News Feed in desktop as well as mobile modes. Apart from that, the badges will also be shown in stories about users liking a page as well as in "Pages You May Like" suggestions.