Twitter removes & later restores ‘blue tick’ from RSS Chief, Vice Prez & others

June 6: The twitter versus government’s strife on the issue of accepting the new rules for social media sites has not been cool yet. In this backdrop, Twitter India involved itself in another major controversy. Twitter on Saturday removed the blue tick or “verified” badge on the personal handles of Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat. Also RSS leaders Suresh Soni, Arun Kumar, Suresh Joshi and Krishna Kumar were among the accounts that lost the verification badges for some time on Saturday.

While the Vice President’s Office was in touch with Twitter India, alarm bells were ringing in the government. The Union government expresses displeasure as Twitter removes blue tick from accounts of VP, RSS chief and 4 other RSS leaders. Twitter after a few hours on Saturday restored the blue verification badge of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat’s personal account, hours after removing it. The micro-blogging site also restored the verification badge of other key functionaries of the Sangh including Krishna Gopal. The blue tick was also restored on M Venkaiah Naidu’s account hours after it was dropped.

Mohan Bhagwat’s Twitter handle has over 215,400 followers and he only follows the official profile of the RSS. Bhagwat has not posted any tweets/retweets or shared any photos or videos yet. According to Twitter, it stated that the personal handle of Mohan Bhagwat was inactive for a long time and the Twitter algorithm removed the blue badge. After the VP office contacted the Twitter office, the blue tick badge was restored before 10:30 AM.

According to Twitter’s rules, the tick is removed if an account becomes “inactive.” A Twitter spokesperson cited the same rule when explaining why the badge was removed from the personal handle of vice president M Venkaiah Naidu. According to Twitter, it holds the sole power to remove the blue verified badge and verified status of a Twitter account at any time and without notice if an account changes its username (@handle), becomes inactive or incomplete, or if the owner of the account is no longer in the position for which they were initially verified and do not otherwise meet criteria for verification since leaving such position.