Twitter is introducing verified accounts to clamp down on ‘brand-jacking’ – the impersonation of celebrities and brands on the popular micro-blogging website.

This announcement comes as Twitter fights a lawsuit filed by Tony La Russa, manager of US baseball team the St Louis Cardinals, who complained about an account set up in his name by an impostor.

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone has written on the company blog explaining that the social media service will be ‘experimenting’ with a beta version of verified accounts, but did not reveal details on how the system will work.

“The experiment will begin with public officials, public agencies, famous artists, athletes, and other well known individuals at risk of impersonation. We hope to verify more accounts in the future but due to the resources required, verification will begin only with a small set”, Stone said in the blog post.

Users should verify the authenticity of accounts themselves by checking that the Twitter link on a brands website correlates with the Twitter feed.

“Please note that this doesn’t mean accounts without a verification seal are fake. The vast majority of Twitter accounts are not impersonators,” explained Stone.