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Twitter verified the account of far-right party Britain First after the account was previously banned from the site.
It follows the removal of verified ticks for some accounts towards the end of Thursday, with some of the biggest accounts losing their ticks including footballer Cristiano Ronaldo, cricketer Virat Kohli and former President of the States United Donald Trump, as well as the Pope’s official Twitter page.
Party leader Paul Golding has also been verified by Twitter.
Accounts labeled as “official organizations” will be able to keep their verified status, under the new rules.
Britain First, which had previously gone unverified, has now been marked as an “official organization” by Twitter, meaning their tweets are more likely to appear in the newsfeeds of users who don’t follow the account.
The Independents Home affairs editor Lizzie Dearden said: “Twitter has verified that the (previously banned) far-right party Britain First is an ‘official organisation’ and is giving blue ticks to anyone ‘affiliated’ with it.
“This will amplify their tweets to non-followers.”
The Twitter accounts of Britain First leader and deputy leader Paul Golding and Jayda Fransen were suspended in 2017, as was the party’s account, under Twitter’s hate speech rules.
Golding was jailed in 2018 for hate crimes against Muslims, while Fransen garnered global attention when US President Donald Trump retweeted anti-Islam videos he posted in 2017.
Britain First and its leader rejoined Twitter in October 2022 after Elon Musk took over the company. Fransen has not re-entered the platform.
Within 24 hours of rejoining the platform, the party account posted a video of asylum seekers at a hotel in Rotherham as well as a video “allegedly showing illegal migrants jumping out of a van in northern France”.
After rejoining the platform, Golding said: “Britain First was first banned by revivalist fanatics in 2017 after it was retweeted by President Donald Trump. We are delighted to be back on the platform as a registered and fully fledged UK political party contesting democratic elections.”
Twitter Verified tweeted that legacy Verified Ticks would be removed from the site on 20 April, with the main way to get a blue tick being to sign up for Twitter Blue, with an £8 monthly fee for users based in the United Kingdom.
Some Twitter users have a gray checkmark next to their accounts, highlighting that it’s verified because “it’s a government account or a multilateral organization.”
Twitter users with gray ticks include Rishi Sunak, Boris Johnson, and Liz Truss.
Some users such as Britain First will have a gold checkmark to indicate that they “are an official organization on Twitter”, although some media outlets have removed it from their account.
BBC News, CNN, NBC News and Fox News are among the affected outlets that no longer have a gold tick.
Twitter owner Elon Musk said he’s paying “personally” to keep blue checkmarks on the accounts of several notable people, despite many saying they wouldn’t pay to keep their checkmark verified.
It comes as some companies have abandoned the platform for fear that Twitter has undermined their credibility.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) said it would “suspend Twitter activities”.
“Our journalism is impartial and independent. To suggest otherwise is not true. This is why we are suspending our Twitter activities,” he tweeted on Monday.
