In an investigatory report by Economic Times, it has been exposed that blue ticks for social media handles are being sold on private marketplaces for Rs 30,000 to Rs 1 lakh in India. However, this charge for verification tick is higher in countries like United States and United Kingdom.
The report also mentions some web sites which are offering verification service at an expensive price. The sites are mpsocial.com, swapd.co, and blackhatworld.com. Various digital marketing agencies are also offering this service.
The issue becomes serious because Facebook, Twitter and Instagram state that only authentic and unique accounts get verification mark. These social media platforms also give verification mark to popular leaders, influencers and registered organizations.
This unofficial way of getting verification mark got a boom after Twitter resumed its verification process, which it had paused in 2017.
The report further added that these agencies often use some tools to boost the user’s follower count through bots.