Twitter users are asking Twitter India to remove all blue ticks over caste discrimination

Casteism, favoritism, abuse of power, political propaganda were just a few of the accusations Indians put on Twitter for verifying Jay Shah, Secretary, BCCI. The issue majorly is that he is also the son of Minister of Home Affairs and BJP Party President, Amit Shah. Why did this happen? 

Jay Shah became the Secretary of BCCI (The Board of Control for Cricket in India) in October. Even though he comes from a political background, he’d been with the Gujarat Cricket Association (GCA) since 2019, and was the joint-secretary since 2013. 

While some of the other board members were pretty active on Twitter for years, Jay Shah notably had no Twitter presence. That changed on October 22, when he joined the platform. However, other Twitter users were surprised to see that he was already verified, even when his followers were barely in double digits.

The issue caught more fire when senior columnist Dilip Mondal’s Twitter account was temporarily suspended. It was perceived as an indirect way of thwarting the Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST) and Other Backward Class (OBC) activists. So much so, that #cancelallBlueTicksinIndia is the topping the trends on the platform itself.

A Twitter India spokesperson denied the accusations and added, “commitment to inclusion and diversity is fundamental to who we are at Twitter and crucial to the effectiveness of our service. There’s only one set of rules on Twitter, and we enforce our policies judiciously and impartially for all individuals — regardless of their political beliefs, religious ideology, professional position, or background”.

Disagreeing that he deserved to be verified, the Indian masses took to Twitter starting the #cancelallBlueTicksinIndia trend, voicing their opinions at how this was unjust and Twitter was preferential by verifying Jay even when it has made it clear that the verified account program has been put on hold.

If you check the hashtag on Twitter right now, you will see tweets filled with fury, calling this move discriminatory, and even calling Twitter spineless for not staying true to its policy and falling weak in front of political power. 

But that’s precisely where the problem lies— Twitter isn’t straying away from its commitment. They never said that no further accounts would be verified. All they mentioned was manual verification requests will no longer be accepted. This basically means that users will no longer be able to request Twitter to get verified directly. It used to be possible many years ago, but as one may expect, many users tried to misuse this option in hopes of a tick mark after their name. 

Twitter is still silently verifying users (check the following tab of @Verified), just that its criteria for selection have become more stringent, and you’ll need to legitimately be a person of stature with a high level of public interest. Twitter will directly contact such persons/organizations to proceed with the verification. There are a few account types mentioned which can get verified, such as accounts maintained by users in music, acting, fashion, government, politics, religion, journalism, media, sports, business, and other key interest areas. 

A verification badge does not imply and endorsement by Twitter

Twitter has made it very clear that a verification badge does not imply any endorsement or preferential treatment, and is not responsible for any actions taken by a verified account. It’s just a way to identify prominent accounts which may be more prone to be imitated and used to spread false news.

Twitter has also taken a stance not to allow political advertising on its platform, to avoid any indirect influence that could have more significant consequences. CEO Jack Dorsey explained this decision in a series of tweets.

In this case, Jay Shah is a prominent body, being the Secretary of the Cricket board, and thus, he deserves to be verified. Though, it might be an overstatement to say that Indian Twitter is unreasonable with its #cancelallBlueTicksinIndia movement. At first glance, it does seem like this is an inside job where Shah’s political connections might have helped him get the verified badge, and Twitter hasn’t been vocal enough at explaining its current stance on verification. Another excellent example of how better communication could have helped avoid public outrage.

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