Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan lodges humorous appeal to restore Twitter blue tick

BEIRUT: Celebrated Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan, who has over 48m Twitter followers, made a “funny appeal” on Friday to have his blue verification tick restored. The tick had been removed from his account even though Bachchan reportedly paid the $8 subscription fee.
The veteran actor, who identifies himself as a media personality on his previously blue-ticked handle, had the verification tick dropped on Thursday despite having subscribed, according to several media reports.
On Friday, Bachchan took to Twitter to express his surprise and lodge what thousands of users deemed a “funny and sarcastic” complaint asking for his blue tick to be restored.
In a tweet that has garnered over 2.4m views, 52k likes and more than 4,700 retweets, the 80-year-old actor said: “Hey Twitter brother. Are you listening? Now I even paid. So put back the blue (tick) in front of my name, so that people know that it is Amitabh Bachchan only. I have already made request with folded hands, now should I fall at your feet?”
Indian media said Bachchan’s tweet — in the Uttar Pradesh dialect — reflected his characteristic humor.
Other famous Bollywood stars including Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan, who have 43m and 45m followers respectively, also had their blue ticks removed. Yet it was not clear whether they had paid the $8 verification service like Bachchan.
Many of Twitter’s high-profile users have lost the blue checks that helped verify their identity and distinguish them from impostors on the Elon Musk-owned social-media platform. Twitter had over 300,000 verified users under the original blue-check system, mostly journalists, athletes and public figures.
Individual Twitter users can now pay $8 a month to have their account marked with a blue tick. It costs $1,000 monthly to verify an organization.