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Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number

sucky.ninja

291–300 of 393 posts

Re: Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number

#291
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I worked in banking we would do this with suspect transactions. The feature was called “Strategic Delay”. After awhile, all of our project plans (this was back in the days of Gantt charts) would include two weeks of effort on “Strategic Delay”, even if that feature wasn’t involved.

This is slightly different though, twitter is silly and unnecessary - access to your money is not. During some of the recent shows highlighting issues with payday lending these sorts of strategic delays were mentioned in the light that they can cause irregularly paid workers to have problems actually getting money out of their paycheck - forcing them into more borrowing until they are able to clear their checks. Agai…

Eh. It is the primary communication mode for the current US president.

Re: Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number

#292
post #82
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You misunderstand - not divulging what triggered the suspicion isn't lying. Claiming a phone number is required due to suspicious activity, when in fact it is required of almost all new accounts, is .

Another covert spam fighting way is when one of the platforms require you to set up a phone number "for two factor authentication", basically not letting you to use their service unless you actually provide the number. There are multiple platforms framing the issue in this way. Facebook once required that you set up 2 factor authentication and they promised that the phone number won't be used for anything else. Few y…

> And since this year, those numbers can be used to search for users on the platform.

And someone really should go after them for it. Last month an abuser from a decade ago found me on facebook and messaged me out of nowhere. Upside is i was able to tell him off, but I know many other people would have a far more.. trying encounters.

Re: Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number

#294
post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

throwaway numbers can mean many things even a 5 dollar sim. some services even let you change phone numbers on a whim cell numbers are mobile in more than one way and very easy.

Many places I've been won't let you buy a SIM without showing id.

> Many places I've been won't let you buy a SIM without showing id.

You don't need to show any ID in Europe to buy non-contract phone number. You can go into most stores and get free or pay 1-5 euro for a phone number.

Re: Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number

#295
post #293

Am I the only person here who sees it as a problem since I don't have a phone number?

I actually had to borrow a phone number to create an account and use Twitter in an emergency, since it was the only channel where a service provider would respond to messages. The whole situation was mind boggling.

Re: Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number

#296
post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many places I've been won't let you buy a SIM without showing id.

> Many places I've been won't let you buy a SIM without showing id. You don't need to show any ID in Europe to buy non-contract phone number. You can go into most stores and get free or pay 1-5 euro for a phone number.

And then you typically need to do some kind of identity verification to activate it.

Re: Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number

#297
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> twitter is just sillines Would you say the same about your phone number? If not, why? If I run my business on Twitter (or YouTube, or Facebook) is it that different from a bank?

If you are running a business on Twitter, I don't see a big issue with having a phone number connected to that Twitter account. It doesn't strike me as unreasonable.

Depends on the business, and whether there's a limit to the number of accounts a number can be linked to. A business can quite legitimately have multiple accounts for different departments, brands, or any other purpose. If you can only have one account per phone number, that can quickly become a problem.

Re: Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number

#298
post #25

They have been doing this for any account registered from a VPN or Tor. However, you can simply appeal the block and tell them you haven't tweeted and not broken any rules. They will send you an automated mail, offering to validate your phone number, or reply to the mail if your problem is not solved. Just reply to the mail. Unfortunately, processing the request takes anywhere between 10 minutes and 2 weeks; usually…

I think this process was the first actual change in my behaviour I noticed in response to GDPR: I actually did not mind providing my phone number that much, and trusted that they actually deleted it when I requested them to (using an option in the interface) after my account was re-approved.

Re: Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number

#299

The article states and asks: > I had a new IP > I had a newly installed operating system and browser. > What exactly about my behavior is unusual? It's not that this behavior is unusual (though, it is), it's that this behavior looks exactly like a bot. It's sad, but this is the state of the world now. If you're a big actor like Twitter, you end up blocking anything that looks like a bot, with an escape hatch a user c…

It is kind of weird to consider not having a static IP as "suspicious" as dynamic IPs are the de-facto standard with most ISPs in my country, you actually have to pay extra if you want a static IP.

Oh, I don't know. I get 1 free static IP with my ISP.

Re: Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number

#300
post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree with the sentiment but what better alternative do you propose to prevent abuse?

Require a deposit to sign up. If you quit you get it back. If you get banned you lose it.

Pretty sure this is already a part of Paypal's business model, with their random account freezes.
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