Twitter Quietly Yanks Taliban Officials’ Blue Check Marks

Twitter appears to have quietly removed its $8-a-month blue checkmarks from a handful of Taliban accounts after the Islamic fundamentalist group’s members shelled out to acquire the symbols. The BBC reported on Monday that blue badges had suddenly appeared next to the handles of at least two Taliban officials and four prominent backers in Afghanistan who were not previously verified, giving them “priority ranking in search, mentions, and replies,” according to the platform’s terms of service. As of midday Tuesday, however, there were no longer check marks on the pages of either Hedayatullah Hedayat or Abdul Haq Hammad—the head of the Taliban’s “access to information” department and an official in the Afghan Ministry of Information and Culture, respectively. The change in status was first noticed by the New York Post. Hedayat previously had a blue check on his account removed in December, the BBC reported, citing local sources.