LinkedIn Will Now Offer Users Verification for Free, Unlike Twitter and Instagram The business-based social media platform will denote verification with green and blue checkmarks on users' profiles.
By Emily Rella Edited by Jessica Thomas
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Instagram and Twitter have made waves recently for offering verification programs where users can pay to have their profiles accompanied by a coveted blue checkmark.
Once a status symbol, verification used to be a way for users to determine if the name associated with the profile they were viewing or interacting with was in fact the person they claimed to be. But the process has now become a free-for-all of sorts on both platforms, where anyone can buy a checkmark and claim to be the official account of whatever individual or organization their profile displays.
Now LinkedIn is joining the verification movement — but the company isn't making users pay for it.
Related: Soon You'll Be Able to Pay to Be Verified on Facebook and Instagram — Here's How Much It Costs
The business-based social media platform announced this week that it will now offer users the opportunity to display on their profile that their identity has been verified and that they have proved that they either work or have worked at the employers listed on their profile.
via LinkedIn
"Through all these new, free features, we're helping give you the confidence that who you're connecting with and the content you come across is trusted and authentic," the company wrote in a blog post.
LinkedIn will now offer users three new ways to verify their identities, either by submitting ID verification (processed via CLEAR for those in the U.S.), through a work email verification or via workplace verification for companies that are in pilot stages (processed with Microsoft Entra.)
Users who have completed the verification process will receive a green or blue checkmark inside a circle next to the pieces of information on their profiles that have been verified. Visible verification badges can be removed at any time.
LinkedIn noted that the feature won't be immediately available to all users but said that verification via work email is currently available for more than 50 million users on the platform.
Related: Mark Cuban Slams Elon Musk Over Twitter Verification System
