Multiple Union Ministries have lost their verified check mark on Twitter following the Elon Musk-owned platform’s move to limit the check mark to people who pay $8 a month (₹650 in India) to retain the blue symbol on their profiles. Even the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY), which regulates social media platforms in India, no longer has a blue tick.
Ashwini Vaishnaw and Rajeev Chandrasekhar, the Minister and Minister of State respectively for Electronics and Information Technology, continue to retain a verification mark, with the grey check mark issued to public officials. While Union Ministries are eligible for such a check mark, it appears that Twitter has not proactively allotted them to Indian Ministries, and the Ministries themselves may not have applied for them.
The Ministries of Culture, Information & Broadcasting, Social Justice & Empowerment, and Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises are some of the others that are left without any mark of verification on their profiles. High profile politicians, including Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, have also lost their check marks.
Celebrities like Shah Rukh Khan and Amitabh Bachchan also lost their check marks, even as some fan accounts appeared to have been verified with Twitter Blue, the subscription service that is now the only way for private individuals to be verified. Mr. Bachchan took to Twitter, for the 4,623th time by his count, to protest.
“Brother Twitter,” he posted, in a folksy dialect. “Are you listening? I’ve even paid the money now… so please restore that blue water lily checkmark in front of my name, so that everybody knows that this really is me — Amitabh Bachchan.”
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