Twitter removes some blue checks paid for by Taliban officials

Musk said tweets from verified accounts are "more likely to be recommended to others."
Taliban fighters take selfie, Kabul, Afghanistan, Sept. 11, 2021
By Madeleine Hubbard

Although Twitter appears to have removed the blue verification checkmarks next to the usernames of at least two Taliban officials while at least one checkmark remains on the page of an official who tried to take advantage of the new platform feature that allows users to buy the certification and make tweets more visible.

Twitter's blue-check verification feature previously was available only to some public figures, but under the direction of the company's new owner, Elon Musk, the feature can be purchased starting at $8 a month.

At least two Taliban officials and several vocal supporters of the hardline Islamic group in Afghanistan, which is under Taliban rule, were subscribed to the feature known as Twitter Blue, the BBC reported Monday. 

Hedayatullah Hedayat, head of the Taliban's "access to information department," and Abdul Haq Hammad, an official at the Afghan Ministry of Information and Culture, paid for blue checkmarks on their accounts, the British outlet reported. Those blue checkmarks have since been removed as of Tuesday. 

Gen. Mobin Khan, described last year by Voice of America as the media chief of the Taliban's police headquarters, still has his paid-for blue check as of Tuesday afternoon. He also called Musk a "clay Afghan," as translated, on Tuesday.

Some Taliban supporters are still verified through Twitter Blue, such as an account identified as Imran Afghani with over 90,000 subscribers and another account under the name Omar Baryal with over 40,000 subscribers.

"Twitter Verified tweets are more likely to be recommended to others, as they are less likely to be bots or troll farms," Musk said Tuesday.

The Taliban's Twitter accounts made headlines shortly after their takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021, with some noting how the Islamic extremists were allowed to flourish on the platform while American conservatives such as former President Donald Trump were banned.

Many accounts, including Trump's, have been restored since Musk took over the platform.