THE cherished blue tick. For those of you not au fait with the Twitterverse, it means you’ve made it. A blue tick on Twitter means you have a verified account.

It indicates that someone might want to spoof you, so you have to have a blue tick which shows it really is you.

With a blue tick, you can join the highest echelons of Twitter society, the likes of Katie Hopkins, Piers Morgan, Donald Trump, or Jedward.

Who wouldn’t want that? I ask you.

Twitter, in a rare gesture of what some might call censorship, others a welcome fight back against hate, has decided that anyone who shares or endorses racist or hateful content will lose their blue tick.

There are people who live their daily lives by Twitter. The retweets, the little hearts you get when someone likes your post, provides meaning to their lives. Attention. Applause.

It’s addictive.

I saw that Tommy Robinson, former leader of the English Defence league and now sociopathic preacher of hate against anyone who isn’t Aryan, has now lost his shiny blue tick.

As my dad used to say, God rest his soul, I haven’t laughed so much since Grandpa died.

Attention and verification is the very oxygen for hate pushers like Robinson. He says he’s not racist, but then encourages the knuckle-draggers who watch his ignorant videos to attack Mosques.

It does present a dilemma for Twitter, though. It seems ill-thought through. It’s very difficult to pick and choose who is racist and who isn’t, and there is a huge grey area in between.

Added to that, the most powerful man in the Western world really needs to have his blue tick removed.

US President Donald Trump, with more than 43 million Twitter followers, this week retweeted a video from Islamaphobic group Britain First, a group set up by former British National Party members which has gained traction on social media platforms.

The inflammatory video purported to show a Muslim migrant attacking a man on crutches, and Trump’s retweet was later criticised by Theresa May’s official spokesman.

It also emerged that the video was – ironically – fake news, as the attacker was not a Muslim migrant.

Twitter, it appears, has a decision to make.

After earlier this month taking a stand against hate, should it not now remove the President’s blue tick? Surely his preaching is on a par with Tommy Robinson’s? Why should Tommy be penalised and not Trump?