Facebook will allow a small number of public figures to verify their
accounts beginning today, a spokesperson from the company confirms.
Users with verified accounts will appear more often in “People To Subscribe To” recommendations on the site, but unlike on Twitter and
Google+, there will be no visual indication that a profile is official.
These users will also have the option to display their more well-known
pseudonyms, if applicable. For example, Curtis Jackson could choose to
go by his stage name 50 Cent across the site, instead of displaying it
as an alternate name as he does now.
Facebook says users with a large number of subscribers will see a
notification to verify their accounts. Not everyone who allows
subscribers will see this option, and for now, users cannot request to
be verified.
The feature will start as invite-only, allowing public figures (in
the beginning, only users with high subscriber counts will be invited)
to change their account to verified status.
Once the account is verified, it will appear more frequently in the “people to subscribe to” list.
Twitter launched verified accounts back in 2009, and Google+ launched a similar feature shortly after launch.
However, unlike Twitter’s version of this feature, Facebook won’t
display any sort of badge on verified accounts – a somewhat odd
decision, since having a way to distinguish the real person from
impostors is precisely why this feature is useful to most users.
Instead, verified users will have the option to display a nickname
(Facebook normally requires all users to use their real name) instead of
a real name, or have their real name places in parentheses.
How To Verify
"To verify your account, you’ll have to send Facebook an image of a
government-issued photo ID, or a combination of two alternate IDs (such
as birth certificate and credit card). While this will certainly make
some users uneasy, Facebook promises to delete this data after
verification."