A decade ago you could quickly check the blue mark and know that the account most likely belonged to the person it was labelled for. The people who had a mark when they shoudn't have were by far the minority, and mistakes were the exception.
In 2026 a blue checkmark actually means the account is far more likely to be fake, more likely to be lying and more likely to be engagement trolling. There's no guarantee it even belongs to a human person. The platform gives the account holder money if they can convince you to click spam links!
It's not even close to having the same value now as it did then.