Taliban is buying Blue Ticks on Elon Musk Twitter

Leading Taliban members have subscribed to Twitter Blue and purchased the verification badge, as per a BBC report. The report shared that at least two Taliban officials and four prominent supporters of the group displayed the blue mark on their profiles.

However, the identifiers are no longer verified, and it's unclear what happened, as neither Twitter nor Musk has commented on the issue.

Taliban buy Twitter's Blue Tick

The BBC reported that Hedayatullah Hedayat, head of the Taliban's "access to information" department, and Abdul Haq Hammad, head of the Afghan Ministry of Information and Culture's media watchdog, bought Twitter's Blue Tick. While Hedayatullah has more than 187,000 followers on his account, Abdul Haq Hammad has more than 170,000 followers. Soon after the reports surfaced, people started sharing their thoughts on social media.

And now, these identifiers need to be verified. Their verification badges appear to have been removed following mass outrage on the internet and social media.

The recent announcement from Twitter about the verification

Twitter recently introduced a new verification program for organizations to help them distinguish themselves and their network on the microblogging site. Formerly known as Twitter Blue, the verification service will launch for a few select businesses and then become available to the rest. Companies that wish to gain early access to the verification process can do so by completing a form. After that, eligible organizations will be added to the waiting list.

The new business verification was announced in a recent blog post. When an organization signs up for verification, it can link any "affiliated businesses, brands, or individuals" to the account. In addition, affiliate accounts will be marked with a badge of their parent company's profile image next to their verified checkmark.