Before that it was: "Someone will give you the checkmark if they like what you say enough and/or if you are deemed 'popular enough' according to an obscure committee; likely a combination of both. But there is a certain threshold above which it does not matter what you way, and you will always be verified". You could loose your checkmark on the whim of some dude who got his latte order wrong in the morning. No one was ever given the rulebook. In fact there was no rulebook. Checkmark just meant "I went to a bar with a Twitter employee and we agreed on a lot of things".

The same thing will happen to Bluesky. The system is akin to how CA and SSL does work with a critical difference. To get an SSL certificate, there is a clear step-by-step guide on how to get it. And after it has been granted it isn't revoked regardless of wether DigiCert agrees with the content of your website.