Far-right Twitter users are expressing their upset across the service after having their blue ticks removed.

The site allows some people to get small "verified" ticks next to their name, if they're deemed sufficiently important. But Twitter has been repeatedly criticised for giving those ticks to Nazis and white supremacists, by people who argue that it suggests the site endorses them.

Now many of those far-right accounts have had those ticks removed. And they are incredibly unhappy about it, with some even suggesting that the move is "like Hitler" or comparing it with being sent to the death camps of the Holocaust.

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Famous right-wingers including Tommy Robinson, Richard Spencer and Laura Loomer are among the many people who have had the ticks removed from the site. They can still post like any other user – despite protestations they are being censored or removed from the site – but no longer get the recognition and extra features afforded to verified users.

According to a post by British far-right activist Tommy Robinson, Twitter sent out emails to those who had their verified ticks removed telling them it had done so because they were breaking the site's terms of service. He said that to do so was to censor him.

Laura Loomer, who received notoriety after having sent racist tweets about Uber and Lyft drivers, said that "Twitter is quick to call me and others Nazis, but they are literally trying to eradicate my presence. Just like Hitler." She also posted a poem written by anti-Nazi pastor Martin Niemöller, which was written about opposing the Holocaust.

And Richard Spencer, the man who has attempted to cast himself as the leader of the alt-right movement, posted that his tick had been taken away because he is "proudly white".

Twitter has had trouble because it isn't clear what exactly the blue verified tick means. It had claimed that the feature was intended only to indicate that it had checked the profile belonged to the person it claimed to – but many users pointed out that verified users also received other privileged features, including being pushed up higher in searches and receiving more ways to deal with abuse.

As a result, the site said that it recognised those criticisms and that it would be more careful about who it verified. That included launching new guidelines for who would receive a blue tick – and removing any users who had one already but broke the guidelines.

“We’re working on a new authentication and verification program,” its "Support" account tweeted. “We are conducting an initial review of verified accounts and will remove verification from accounts whose behavior does not fall within these new guidelines.”