I logged on twitter 3 days ago, I almost never log in, it seems my account was disabled.
Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number
301–310 of 393 posts
Re: Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number
#302Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
Possible that's typical, but it's certainly not universal
Re: Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number
#303Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
In Austria, Belgium & Germany you do, in Croatia & The Netherlands you don’t
Re: Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number
#304Earlier 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.
Germany passed an anti-terror law a few years ago, getting a phone number requires the same level of verification as opening a bank account.
Even before that prepaid phones have been a strawman argument, actually maintaining a 2nd number in the long run is quite a bit of work since it usually expires if you don't use it enough.
Re: Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number
#305Earlier 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?
No? I'm not clear on what the real point of this question is - twitter is a terrible platform to use for actual communication. Their sorting by "relevance" can cause recent messages to get lost in the shuffle and randomly mess with your visibility. It may be you're considering twitter as a business in which to coordinate product sales, but I'll assume it's for customer relations management, many companies that have a…
I'm really just confused by the question though - these things are not the same and twitter is simply not as important as the place your money lives (and I think pretty much everyone would agree?..
I disagree pretty strongly.
Twitter is much more important than the bank I keep my money in.
Banking in fungible. Twitter gives me access.
I've arranged meetings with the partners of the biggest VC fund in Australia sorely via Twitter. I've had in depth discussions of the details of ML models with their authors via Twitter.
Generally speaking I'm much more relaxed about a 2 day delay in my banking than a 2 day delay in Twitter.
Maybe I'm getting too old
I'm 43, so I doubt it's that.
Re: Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number
#306Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is understandable why they'd lie. If the error message was something like, "your request was blocked because you've included HTTP headers in the order [x-foo, x-bar], which is the header ordering in 99.9% of spam tweets", they would just change their agent's header order instead of no longer spending spam. I am not sure people realize what a high percentage of users of "free" services are spam bots of some sort. S…
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 .
Creating an account from a system which no Twitter tracking pixel has ever seen may well be suspicious, where suspicious means statistically correlated with accounts create to spam or acts as hostile bots.
I don't think this is lying at all.
Re: Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number
#307Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> 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?
>Would you say the same about your phone number?
No.
>If not, why?
Because a phone is a universal method of communication, for businesses, spouses, families, friends, and everything in between.
Twitter is yet another social media gossip discussion site, just one with a gimmick (limited characters).
>If I run my business on Twitter (or YouTube, or Facebook) is it that different from a bank?
The only businesses run on Twitter are ads, influencers, and PR -- and those deserve to die anyway.
Re: Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number
#308Earlier quoted context omitted.
No? I'm not clear on what the real point of this question is - twitter is a terrible platform to use for actual communication. Their sorting by "relevance" can cause recent messages to get lost in the shuffle and randomly mess with your visibility. It may be you're considering twitter as a business in which to coordinate product sales, but I'll assume it's for customer relations management, many companies that have a…
You may dislike Twitter (I do) but it is a large thing that exists and appears to provide sufficient value to people that dismissing it as 'silliness' just sounds empty-headed and naive.
Lots of things (a) exist, and (b) appear to provide sufficient value to people, and yet are either totally superficial or deleterious.
(a) and (b) are some of the lowest of bars. Even ISIS passes those, along with tons of other things (deep fried Mars bars, for one).
The parent made a qualitative argument and/or value judgement. Mere existence doesn't negate it, arguments why his values are bad, or shouldn't be taken into account, might.
Re: Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number
#309Created a new account yesterday (from Australia) and had the option for either email or phone number (went with email). Haven't since been asked for a phone number. Disclosure (haven't read the article, just responding to the title 'Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number')
Re: Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number
#310Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> epidemic abuse by trolls, I am soo tried of hearing this excuse for mass censorship First of it MASSIVELY over used to the point where people call anyone that disagrees with them "a troll" or a bot. Twitter is hurting their own brand by their obvious political bias and selective enforcement of rules largely dependent on outrage mobs to "report" rule violations. Like real names policies before it, these types of "v…
Wait so you don't actively participate in Twitter and yet you feel entitled to give a valid opinion about how the abuse works? Cause let me tell you, the number of accounts I've seen whose commentd get overrun with bots is not trivial at all.
and you know they were bots how?