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Twitter confirmed in a blog post on Wednesday that it is doing so in order to prevent misuse of text-based account authentication.
In a blog post detailing the feature change, a statement by Twitter read, "While historically a popular form of 2FA, unfortunately, we have seen phone-number based 2FA be used and abused by bad actors. So starting (February 15th), we will no longer allow accounts to enrol in the text message/SMS method or 2FA unless they are Twitter Blue subscribers. The availability of text message 2FA for Twitter Blue may vary by country and carrier."
For the unaware, the Twitter Blue tick is available in India at Rs 650 per month for web users and Rs 900 per month on mobile.
The platform further added that users who do not subscribe to Twitter Blue, but are already enrolled on the 2FA feature via text message authentication "will have 30 days to disable this method and enrol in another." Twitter currently offers three methods of 2FA: text message, authentication app, and security key.
"After 20 March 2023, we will no longer permit non-Twitter Blue subscribers to use text messages as a 2FA method. At that time, accounts with text message 2FA still enabled will have it disabled. Disabling text message 2FA does not automatically disassociate your phone number from your Twitter account," the statement said.
Twitter has been looking for ways to increase ad revenue, as well as find ways to monetise the platform. The first ploy for this has been Twitter Blue — a feature that allows paying users to edit tweets and write 4,000-character tweets too.