Twitter on Saturday removed the blue verification badge from the personal accounts of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat as well as a number of other leaders from the organisation.
Earlier in the day, the microblogging site removed the blue badge from the account of Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu only to restore it later.
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.
RSS leader Rajiv Tuli confirmed the development. "Twitter has withdrawn verification marks from the accounts of many RSS functionaries. We tried to contact Twitter in this regard but no one responded," he said.
Twitter removed the blue badge from the personal Twitter handle of Vice President of India M. Venkaiah Naidu, @MVenkaiahNaidu, which has 13 lakh followers.
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 serve the public conversation by informing people of the authenticity of accounts with considering the public interest.
( With inputs from ANI )
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