After facing the wrath of netizens, US-based micro-blogging platform Twitter restored the verified ‘blue tick’ on cricket legend and former Indian cricket team captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni's account (@msdhoni) within a couple of hours after removing it earlier on Friday. The blue tick on Twitter is used to indicate that the profile is 'verified' which is a loosely defined term.
Dhoni, the captain of India's 2011 World Cup-winning team, has 8.2 million followers on his Twitter account. Although Twitter has given no clarification on the removal of the blue tick, the social media giant is facing the wrath of netizens. Dhoni's last tweet was made on January 8 this year in which he had shared the link of his video from his strawberry farm, which means the blue tick was taken away almost seven months after his last tweet.
This is not the first time Twitter has removed a high profile blue tick without any prior notice. Earlier, the social networking site withdrew the blue verified badge from Vice President of India M Venkaiah Naidu's Twitter account and several others RSS functionaries including joint secretaries Krishna Gopal and Arun Kumar, former general secretary Suresh Joshi alias "Bhaiyyaji", former joint general secretary Suresh Soni and the current Sampark Pramukh Aniruddha Deshpande. However, after facing severe criticism the social networking site had restored the verified badge of the Vice President of India M Venkaiah Naidu's Twitter account.
As per Twitter, it holds the sole power to 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), becomes inactive or incomplete, or if the owner of the account is no longer in the position for which they were initially verified and do not otherwise meet criteria for verification since leaving such position.
Twitter may also remove the blue tick verified badge if an account is found to be in severe or repeated violation of the Twitter Rules including impersonation or intentionally misleading people on Twitter or for reasons such as hateful conduct policy, abusive behavior, glorification of violence policy, civic integrity policy, private information policy, etc.