How does the blue tick in twitter work?

Factual Questions
1

Most celebrities twitter handles have a blue tick to show they’re the real deal. How does that work?

For example, presumably the actor Tom Cruise either has a blue-ticked Twitter or could easily get one. What if my name was also Tom Cruise, could I get one by simply proving my name was Tom Cruise?

If not, could I get one if I was say a lower division footballer, somewhat famous locally, known to football fans but no real international recognition, and my name was Tom Cruise? In this case I’m a “celebrity” but many tiers below the most recognizable holder of my name.

2

Nobody is getting any blue checks right now:

3

All right, but when it’s working how does it work?

4

I think the answer to “how did it work?” is “poorly”, due to issues like the one you mention, and that’s why they’ve stopped doing it.

5

Yeah, I believe how it worked was that some humans at Twitter got together and decided “Ok, if the average person sees the name Tom Cruise, is this the person that they’re thinking of” and then tried to verify that it was actually that Tom Cruise in charge of the twitter account.

You’ve pointed out a few reasons why that’s a hard question to answer.

6

Agreed. We’ve been trying to get one for author Peter Straub for years with no success.