After removing the blue verified badge from Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu’s personal handle on Saturday, Twitter restored it the same day. The blue verified tag tells users that the account of public interest is authentic.

(Photo Credit: Screenshot-Twitter/@MVenkaiahNaidu)

The Vice President’s personal handle has 1.3 million followers but has been inactive since July 2020 and no tweet has been put out since then. He tweets from the official handle of the Vice President (@VPSecretariat).

Twitter has the authority to remove the blue verified badge of any verified handle, if there is a change in the user name, or the account becomes inactive or the person, who runs a handle, is no longer in the position for which he/she was initially verified.

The blue badge can also be removed if there are repeated violations of Twitter’s rules, which include impersonation or intentionally misleading people by changing display name.

The blue badge on Naidu’s personal handle was removed due to inactivity, reported news agency ANI, quoting an official. 

Also read: Why has Nigeria banned Twitter?

This comes amid an ongoing tussle between Twitter and the Centre over the Government of India’s new IT rules. The Centre has asked Twitter to “stop beating around the bush” and “comply with the laws of the land”.