Hours after removing the verified blue tick, Twitter on Saturday restored it on the personal handle of vice president M Venkaiah Naidu. The vice president’s office said that since the official handle is used more now, the personal account remained inactive since July 2020. However, after approaching Twitter, the blue tick was restored.
According to the micro-blogging site, the blue verified badge on Twitter lets people know that an account of public interest is authentic. To receive the blue badge, your account must be authentic, notable, and active.
A source in Twitter said Naidu’s account may have been unverified through an algorithm as he hasn’t tweeted in almost a year. The three RSS leaders who were recently unverified apparently haven’t tweeted ever, the source added.
Twitter may also remove the blue verified badge from accounts that are found to be in severe or repeated violation of the Twitter Rules including impersonation or intentionally misleading people on Twitter by changing your display name or bio violations that result in immediate account suspension or repeated violations in Tweets, including but not limited to: hateful conduct policy, abusive behavior, glorification of violence policy, civic integrity policy, private information policy, or platform manipulation and spam policy.
The blue verified badge was removed from the Vice President of India’s personal Twitter handle over inactivity, although several twitterers have put screenshots of handles that continue to have blue tick despite being inactive for over a year.
“The personal account of Venkaiah Naidu was inactive for six months and the blue badge has gone,” said an official from Vice President. Meanwhile, BJP Mumbai spokesperson Suresh Nakhua questioned Twitter on removing the blue badge from the Vice President’s Twitter handle and termed it an ‘assault on the Constitution of India’. “Why did @Twitter @TwitterIndia remove Blue tick from the handle of Vice President of India Shri @MVenkaiahNaidu ji ? This is assault of Constitution of India,” tweeted Nakhua.
In an ongoing tussle between Twitter and the Government of India on complying with the new IT laws, the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) had asked the microblogging company to “stop beating around the bush” and “comply with the laws of the land”. In a statement on Thursday, MeitY asserted that India had a “glorious tradition of free speech and democratic practices” and Twitter’s statements were an ‘attempt to dictate its terms to the world’s largest democracy.
(With inputs from ANI)
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