Twitter says it will charge users to verify accounts via text message

Twitter on Friday evening said that it will soon implement a policy in which users will have to subscribe to the company’s new “Blue” service in order to verify their accounts via text message.

Twitter has historically allowed users to securely verify their accounts by receiving a text message with a verification code. This form of security, known as “two-factor authentication” or 2FA, is regarded as reliably safe for protecting sensitive data from hackers. 

Yet in a tweet on Friday night, Twitter Support said that “effective March 20, 2023, only Twitter Blue subscribers will be able to use text messages as their two-factor authentication method.”

The company in a post on its website said that it has “seen phone-number based 2FA be used - and abused - by bad actors.”

Non-Blue subscribers shoulder “consider using an authentication app or security key method instead” after the policy goes into effect, the company wrote.