Twitter is threatening the possibility of locking the accounts of millions of users as soon as Monday. Twitter says that if you’ve noticed a warning pop up on your account recently, you may not want to ignore it any longer.
Twitter began warning users that two-factor authentication using the popular the text message/SMS method would end March 20th. Two-factor authentication is the process that requires a user to take two steps to verify the account belongs to the person using it.
The first step asks for a user name and password. The most popular second step is a code texted to the phone associated with the account. It’s popular because it’s easy to copy and paste the code from the text message into Twitter.
Beginning last month, Twitter no longer allowed new accounts to enroll in the text message/SMS method of two-factor authentication. Users who pay the $8 monthly fee for Twitter Blue will still be able to use text messaging for two-factor authentication.
For everyone else, the reason why Twitter is making changes all comes down to money. Elon Musk says phone companies scamming Twitter with two-factor authentication is costing the company $60 million a year.
