It was a dramatic beginning to the weekend as the microblogging site Twitter removed the blue tick from the 2nd citizen of India Venkaiah Naidu's handle. As if the stoke was not enough the social media giant did the same to RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat's official account adding fuel to fire in an ongoing spat with the government in centre.
The row started in the morning when Venkaiah Naidu's personal Twitter account was signaling officially unverified as the blue tick was missing. As many as 1.3 million twitteratis follow Vice president Naidu. When the matter escalated the blue tick was restored.
The last time Naidu tweeted from this account on 23rd July 2020. Possibly the blue tick was removed due to not accessing the account for a year. As per the regulations of Twitter, If a person Re-Christianizes the handle name the blue tick gets removed.
Hours after Naidu's 'Saturday blues' was resolved, It was Mohan Bhagwat's account's turn to go unverified on Twitter. The blue tick was invisible from RSS supremo Bhagwat's Twitter handle which has 2 lakh followers. Earlier Twitter has also removed the blue tick from the account of various Sangh leaders.
The Delhi unit RSS top official, Rajiv Tuli expressed strong objection and stated that it shows the partial work culture of Twitter. He added that there are many accounts that have not been accessed for more than a year still have a verified blue tick. He informed that the blue tick was removed from the 5 RSS top brass leader's handle.
Notably, the centre and Twitter are on the loggerheads for a long time on the social media guidelines. A petition against Twitter and Twitter India was also filed in the Delhi High court. The plea filed by the advocate Amit Acharya accuses Twitter of violating the IT rules 2021. (WD)
