Twitter restores blue verification tick of Vice President Venkaiah Naidu, RSS chief Bhagwat

NEW DELHI: Twitter on Saturday restored the "blue tick" verification of RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, hours after taking it down.
Earlier today, the microblogging platform had removed the blue badge of Vice President Venkaiah Naidu only to restore it later.
It has also restored the verification badge of other RSS functionaries, including senior Sangh leader Krishna Gopal.
The move to drop the blue tick or badge — which indicates that the account is authentic — from the handles of two prominent leaders triggered a backlash, with the government sources lashing out at the social media platform.
It also comes in the backdrop of a standoff between the Centre and Twitter over the new digital rules which came into force last month.

Citing its verification policy, Twitter said the blue tick of VP Naidu was removed since the account had been inactive since July 2020.
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.
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.
Meanwhile, the government on Saturday issued a notice to Twitter giving it one last chance to "immediately" comply with the new IT rules.
It warned that failure to adhere to the norms will lead to the platform losing exemption from liability under the IT Act.
The new IT rules for social media companies that came into effect last month mandate large platforms like Facebook and Twitter to undertake greater due diligence and make these digital platforms more accountable and responsible for the content hosted by them.