'Priorities': Rahul Gandhi slams Centre for 'fighting' for blue ticks instead of vaccines

With the feud with Twitter taking new turns, the recent one being the sudden disappearance of blue ticks from the account of eminent leaders on the pretext of inactivity, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday came forward to take a dig at the Central government. Taking to his official Twitter handle, he asserted that the Centre was 'fighting for blue ticks' at a time it should be fighting for vaccines and went on to say that if one wanted a COVID-19 vaccine, they had to be 'self-reliant'. He concluded the tweet with the hashtag- #priorities. 

Twitter restores the blue tick of Vice President Venkaiah Naidu and others

On Saturday, Twitter removed the blue verified badge from the account handles of Vice President Venkaiah Naidu,  RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat and others, and that elicited a very strong response from the Centre. Calling the move an escalation beyond the 'Centre vs Twitter' paradigm, the government accused  Twitter of showing 'blatant disregard' for the constitutional process. Even the people of the country could not turn a blind eye to the entire issue and slammed the micro-blogging site across platforms, after which it restored the blue ticks. 

A Twitter spokesperson earlier claimed, "Account inactive since July 2020. As per our verification policy, Twitter may remove the blue verified badge and verified status if the account becomes inactive." However, government sources maintained that the 'inactive' theory does not hold as many deceased leaders still have the 'blue tick' on their handles. Moreover, they added that many award-winning journalists had retained the blue verified badge despite being inactive on the platform for many months. Taking a dig at the Twitter algorithm, government sources expressed surprise at how things get rectified only after a hue and cry. The microblogging platform does not pay heed to the rules of the land and then cites the internal rulebook, top sources within the government added. 

Twitter's criteria for a 'blue tick' verified badge 

The 'blue tick' verified badge is aimed at letting people know that an account of public interest is authentic. As per the existing policy, the account will only be verified if is authentic, notable, and active. Persons who have not logged into their accounts in the last 6 months, not had a 12-hour or 7-day lockout for violating Twitter rules in the last 12 months, engaged in platform manipulation and engaged in spreading hateful content are automatically excluded. 

Twitter says it can remove the blue tick without any notice in the following scenarios: 

• If the account name is changed
• If the account becomes inactive or incomplete
• If the account is found to be in severe or repeated violation of Twitter rules
• Impersonation or Intentionally misleading people
• Repeated violations including but not limited to hateful content, abusive behaviour, glorification of violence, civic integrity policy, platform manipulation and spam policy and private information policy

(Credit-PTI/AP/-@Venkaiahnaidu)