The Taliban bought Twitter’s $8 a month blue ticks. They appear to have been removed after outrage.

• The Twitter accounts of at least two Taliban officials were sporting blue ticks on Monday, per the BBC.
• That sparked an outrage and by Tuesday, the ticks appear to have been removed.
• Governments around the world the world are still grappling with whether to recognize the hardline Islamist regime.

Top Taliban officials and their supporters — who sported Twitter’s $8 a month blue verified badges up until Monday — appear to no longer be Twitter verified after a BBC report sparked outrage. 

The BBC reported Monday that the Twitter accounts of at least two Taliban officials and four well-known supporters of the regime were sporting the checkmarks. They include Hedayatullah Hedayat, head of the Taliban’s department for “access to information”, and Abdul Haq Hammad, who heads the regime’s media watchdog. They have about 190,000 and 170,000 followers, respectively.