Twitter restores Venkaiah Naidu’s authentication mark

Twitter restored the verified blue tick on the personal account of Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu after removing it earlier on Saturday.

Clarifying the matter, a spokesperson of the micro-blogging site mentioned that Naidu’s account has been inactive since July 2020. The last tweet from the handle was posted on 23 July 2020. Naidu has been using the official Vice President’s Twitter handle, @VPSecretariat, to send out tweets.

As per the microblogging site’s verification policy, it can remove the blue verified badge if the account remains inactive for long, the spokesperson further added.

However, the badge has been restored, Twitter informed.

Officials of the Vice President Secretariat reiterated the same reason, stating that the personal Twitter handle of Naidu, @MVenkaiahNaidu, the algorithm of the micro-blogging site had removed the blue badge on account of the handle being inactive for a long time.

They said Twitter was in the process of restoring the verification badge. The officials said the micro-blogging site was contacted after they noticed this morning that the blue tick was removed. Before 10.30 AM, the blue tick badge was restored, they said.

RSS Sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat has not got the blue tick mark back yet, though. While the micro-blogging site may say his handle has been inactive for long too, RSS sources say that its ideological heads were never going to be active in the medium. “However, since some cyber squatters were misusing the names of Bhagwat ji and others, it was decided that our leaders must be in a position to control what is being attributed to them,” a pracharak said on the condition of anonymity.

The blue tick on Twitter handles is given to ensure that the social media account of the person is authentic, notable, and active.

Earlier in the day, RSS swayamsevak Rajiv Tuli had confirmed the development against the organisation led by Bhagwat. “Twitter has withdrawn verification marks from the accounts of many RSS functionaries.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 had said.