Twitter restores blue verification tick of RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat's personal account
Jun 05, 2021
New Delhi [India], June 5 : Hours after removing the verification badge, Twitter restored the blue tick on personal accounts of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat and other RSS key functionaries including Krishna Gopal.
The corrective action by the social media giant came after the removal of the verification tick triggered a major uproar on social media.
Earlier in the day, Twitter had removed the blue verification badge from the personal accounts of Bhagwat as well as a number of other RSS leaders.
The microblogging site also removed the blue badge from the account of Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu, which has 1.3 million followers. However, it later restored the blue verification tick of Naidu's personal account. The last tweet from the handle was made on July 23, 2020.
The blue tick on Twitter handles is to let people know that the social media account is authentic. It said to receive the blue badge, the person's account must be authentic, notable, and active.
According to Sangh sources, Twitter has over the past several days removed the blue badge from the accounts of many RSS leaders whose accounts were verified by the social media platform back in 2019.
The list includes prominent Sangh leaders including Gopal Krishna, Arun Kumar, and former leaders Suresh Soni and Suresh B Joshi.
The social media platform cited that the account had been inactive since July 2020 and according to Twitter verification policy, it may remove the blue verified badge and verified status if the account becomes inactive or is incomplete.
It explained that inactivity is based on logging in, adding that to keep the account active, the account holder must make sure to log in at least every six months.
It aims to encourage and maintain trust between users on the platform by confirming the identity of an account with Twitter in order to be verified.
As per Twitter, verification is part of the social media platforms' commitment to serving the public conversation by informing people of the authenticity of accounts with considering the public interest.
