How to update author display name on blog posts based on user role

The main culprit is this line

$current_user = wp_get_current_user();

As the name “get current user” suggests, it gets you the currently logged in user. That is not what you want.

Being in the the_author filter, you can use the global $authordata variable, as the function calling the filter relies on it as well.

function add_verification_bagdge_to_authors($display_name) {
    global $authordata;

    if (!is_object($authordata))
        return $display_name;

    $icon_roles = [
        'administrator',
        'verified_author',
    ];

    $found_role = false;
    foreach ($authordata->roles as $role) {
        if (in_array(strtolower($role), $icon_roles)) {
            $found_role = true;
            break;
        }
    }

    if (!$found_role)
        return $display_name;

    $result = sprintf('%s <i title="%s" class="userfnt-accept"></i>',
        $display_name,
        __('This is a Verified Author', 'plugin_or_theme_lang_slug')
    );

    return $result;
}
add_filter( 'the_author', 'add_verification_bagdge_to_authors' );

get_the_author_display_name is not a core filter, so you might need to use other code for it, depending on how this filter works and where it is from.

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