Ayushi Mehta
The micro blogging social media platform Twitter, yet again makes it to the news after it takes away the verified badges or the ‘blue tick’ from the accounts of many leaders from RSS, including the Vice President of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)- Venkaiah Naidu along with other chiefs and leaders of RSS like Mohan Bhagwat.
The ‘blue tick’ after the username of the account means that the account is verified, original and legit.
Twitter however had to restore the badges of the RSS leaders after it received a lot of uproar by the followers of RSS and other users, after a few hours of them taking away the badge.
It is still unclear if the badges were received due to the uproar caused by the people of these accounts were logged into, to make it seem active.
Twitter’s response to this was the system that processes the approval and removal of the badges and blue ticks is automated and is not done manually. The same is mentioned in the Verified Twitter’s Policies that “verified badges may be automatically removed from inactive and incomplete accounts”.
An inactive account is the one that does not get logged into for six months or more.
According to Twitter, RSS Vice President Naidu’s account was inactive since July 2020.
Earlier this year, Twitter has announced that it is going to start taking back the verified badges from all the users who either have been inactive for more than six months, or the accounts that are incomplete. The incomplete account is the one who does not have either of the following- a verified email, phone number, a profile photo and a profile name.
The announcement that Twitter made via tweeting, dating January 22, 2021 said- Last call! As part of our new verification policy, we’ll remove verification badges from inactive and incomplete accounts starting tomorrow, January 22. We’ve reached out directly to those who need to take action to stay verified.”
Last call! As part of our new verification policy, we’ll remove verification badges from inactive and incomplete accounts starting tomorrow, January 22.
We've reached out directly to those who need to take action to stay verified. For more info: https://t.co/pDI1YmZOM7 pic.twitter.com/J3Aj9H3X7x
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) January 21, 2021