Badge taken off after inactivity for 6 months: Twitter on blue tick

The comment comes amid outrage over personal accounts of Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu and RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat losing verified blue tick marks

Amid outrage over personal accounts of Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu and RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat losing verified blue tick marks, Twitter on Saturday said the blue badge and verified status could be automatically removed from an account if it is incomplete or inactive for six months as per its rules.

On Saturday morning, Twitter had removed and later restored the verified blue badge on the personal account of Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu.

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat's personal account also saw the blue badge being removed and was subsequently restored. Many other accounts of prominent Sangh names like Suresh Joshi and Arun Kumar also saw similar actions being taken.

On Saturday, Twitter said as per its verification policy, the microblogging platform may automatically remove the blue verified badge and verified status if the account becomes inactive or is incomplete.

"Inactivity is based on logging in. To keep the account active, the account holder must make sure to log in at least every 6 months, Twitter said.

Accounts holders that sport the blue badge must also ensure that their profiles are complete and include either a verified email address or phone number as well as a profile image and a display name, as per the rules.

Twitter, however, did not disclose the number and details of the accounts that had been actioned under these rules.

The coveted ''blue badge'' helps users distinguish the authenticity of accounts that are of high public interest, and gives Twitter users more context about who they're having conversations with, the micro-blogging platform had earlier stated.