After a first attempt in December, two senior Taliban leaders were able to obtain a certification badge on Twitter. According to the BBC, four high-profile supporters of the regime have also signed up for the platform’s Twitter Blue offer to secure the paid prize.
BBC reporter Sebastien Usher captured the account of Hidaytullah Hidayat, wearing the blue badge. Heading the department of access to information in Afghanistan, he is part of the Taliban regime. It was he who had already managed to get certified in December before Twitter withdrew the distinction.
Certifications withdrawn later
Following Tech&Co verification, the account, followed by more than 187,000 people, has lost its badge again since the screenshot was posted on January 16. The same goes for Abdul Haq Hammad. The head of the media watchdog of the Afghan Ministry of Information and Culture had also been certified on behalf of a Twitter Blue subscription, according to the BBC.
Among the rest of the accounts that have subscribed to the Twitter payment formula, Tech&Co has been able to find that of Mobeen Khan. He is a soldier from the Taliban regime who does have the blue badge.
The Twitter Blue service went live in December. It allows all users who pay $8 (or $11 from an Apple device) to get a certification back. This distinction allows more visibility on the platform. A verified account will see their posts and replies appear higher in the recommendation thread or in search.
Management of checks to review
In November, a first attempt turned the introduction of paid certification into a fiasco. This episode had only lasted a few hours, but it had been long enough to spawn many imitations. That’s why certification badges are delivered manually after verification by Twitter teams.
Therefore, the appearance of a blue mark on the accounts of the Taliban regime raises two questions. First in accessibility to the Twitter Blue offer. The platform indicates on your site The paid offer is only available in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and the United Kingdom. But not in Afghanistan.
So how is verification of accounts handled before they are certified? If human verification is performed, the accounts in question should have obtained your credential or not. But here, the badges were attached and then removed. And even twice in the case of Hidaytullah Hidayat.
Source: BFM TV
