Twitter restores blue verification tick of vice president Venkaiah Naidu's personal account

The corrective action by Twitter came within hours of removal of the blue tick from the vice president's personal account on Saturday morning.

Twitter on Saturday restored the blue verification tick of vice president M Venkaiah Naidu's personal account, within hours of removing it from his profile. The corrective action by the social media giant came after the removal of the verification tick triggered a major uproar on social media.

Vice President Naidu's personal Twitter handle with blue tick restored

Naidu's personal account, which was created in August 2013, has 1.3 million followers. However, the last tweet from the handle was made on July 23, 2020. A Twitter spokesperson attributed this to the removal of the verification badge from the vice president's personal handle.

"Account inactive since July 2020. As per our verification policy, Twitter may remove blue verified badge and verified status if the account becomes inactive. Badge has been restored," a Twitter spokesperson was quoted as saying.

However, several social media users pointed out how several accounts which are inactive continue to have the blue tick. Also, at the same time, the official handle of the vice president of India continued to be verified.

Saturday also saw verification badges from personal Twitter handles of several Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) removed.

This episode comes at a time when the San Francisco-headquartered company has found itself in a face-off with the central government over the new IT Rules, which were announced on February 25. The Union ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY) has warned Twitter to comply with the "law of the land."