Twitter on Saturday removed and later restored the verified blue tick on the personal account of Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu.
Officials of the Vice President Secretariat said the personal Twitter handle of Naidu @MVenkaiahNaidu was inactive for a long time and the Twitter algorithm removed the blue badge.
Twitter was in the process of restoring the verification badge. The last tweet posted from the personal handle was on July 23 last year, PTI reported.
The officials said Twitter was contacted after they noticed this morning that the blue tick was removed. Before 10.30 am, the blue tick badge was restored, Twitter stated.
Twitter said the account has been inactive since July 2020. It said the verified badge has now been restored. The Vice President uses the official Twitter handle @VPSecretariat to send out tweets.
According to Twitter, the blue verified badge on Twitter informs people that the profile is of public interest and is authentic. In order to get the blue tick or badge, the account has to be authentic, notable, and active.
Twitter's policy states that it may remove the blue verified badge and verified status of a Twitter account at any time and without notice if an account changes its username (@handle) or an account becomes inactive or incomplete or if the owner of the account is no longer for which position they were initially verified and do not otherwise meet the social media's giant criteria for verification since leaving such position.