Social media giant Twitter on Saturday removed the blue verified badge from the personal handle of Vice President Venkaiah Naidu. Where the official account of the Vice President of India @VPSecretariat still has a blue tick, it has been taken away from the personal handle @MVenkaiahNaidu. So far, Twitter has given no clarification on this arbitrary move.
The verified badge or ‘blue tick’ lets people know that an account of public interest on the social media platform is authentic.
According to Twitter, the company has the right to remove the blue verified badge from any Twitter account at any time and that too without any notice if an account changes its username, becomes inactive or incomplete, or if the owner of the account is no longer on the post for which they were verified.
It is being speculated that Twitter has withdrawn the blue tick due to Vice President Venkaiah Naidu’s inactivity on his personal account. The last tweet by his personal account was posted on July 23, 2020. “The personal account of Venkaiah Naidu was inactive for six months and the blue badge has gone,” said an official for VP.
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The account with the handle @MVenkaiahNaidu has 1.3 million followers, whereas, the official account of the Vice President of India has more than 931,000 followers.
However, after removing the blue tick from Naidu’s personal account, Twitter has been facing massive backlash from Indian citizens. Venkaiah Naidu is trending on Twitter, with netizens slamming the company for its decision.
According to the latest information, after facing massive backlash, Twitter has restored the blue tick on VP Venkaiah Naidu’s personal account.
Along with Venkaiah Naidu, several leaders of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh also lost their blue ticks from their respective accounts.