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Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number

sucky.ninja

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

#181

Post by baroffoos »

packet_nerd wrote: post #171
criddell wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there are enough people like you, I'm sure they'll find some way to accommodate you. Maybe they will accept a scan of your passport or ask for a bank account number or some other piece of data that makes it at least a tiny bit harder to open an account.

There has got to be a better way to do online identity as a society! The most promising ideas I've heard about are WebAuthn and Estonia's digital identity system. How long is it going to take to get out of the dark ages and get this right? One thing I'm sure of, uploading a scan of my passport to every website is not an appealing thought. Besides the inconvenience, do I really want my passport spread around on dozens…

There isn't any good way to maintain perfect privacy while also rejecting bots/trolls with 20 accounts.

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

#183

Post by libraryatnight »

anigbrowl wrote: post #134
munk-a wrote: post #102

Earlier 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 people value are suppliers of silliness. Humans put a lot of stock into silliness.

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

#184

Post by baroffoos »

daybreak wrote: post #22

I had this problem when creating a new Twitter account last month. Within minutes after setting up an account via iOS app, was locked out for "suspicious behavior". Didn't even tweet once. Residential IP. They wanted me to add a phone number. I went to the help section and wrote a pissed off message to customer support...if they wanted my phone # they should have asked for it instead of accusing me. Shortly after, my…

I wonder how anyone actually uses twitter because I constantly get messages that I am rate limited/blocked and when I signed up for an account it was quickly locked when I had posted nothing. Its like they actively want no one to use it.

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

#186

Post by reshie »

lskopwol wrote: post #170
est31 wrote: post #120

The other component is that once they have the phone number, they can do anything with it they want, unless you leave the network. E.g. facebook once did the same, they required phone numbers "for two factor authentication". They promised to not use the numbers for anything else. A few years later they started sending SMS spam to users about what their friends did on facebook, and now facebook users can enter the num…

Actually, fb still requires the phone number, if you try to open up a few accounts in succession. You can't use throwaway numbers or Google Voice numbers either. So it's actually pretty hard these days to open a Fb (Or Hotmail or Gmail) account without a legit (cellphone) number.

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.

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

#187

Post by Pfhreak »

syshum wrote: post #179
anigbrowl wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter knows what IP you connect from, which might easily be through a VPN. The flip side of low-friction authentication is epidemic abuse by trolls, which arguably damages Twitter's brand. Unfortunately, most people simply don't understand the implications of any of this. Well, so you say.

>> 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…

I'm guessing we'd agree that Twitter has an overt bias. I'd suspect we'd disagree about which way it leans.

Which sort of suggests to me that we're both wrong.

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

#188

Post by packet_nerd »

MiddleEndian wrote: post #172
packet_nerd wrote: post #118

My wife and I cancelled our phone services a while back to save money since we rarely if ever have to call anyone and just use messaging to keep in touch with each other and friends. What are people like us supposed to do? I do have a Google voice number, but I noticed one or two places recently that won't accept that anymore.

If I weren't so attached to my number I'd probably ditch phone service too. Do you have issues with Google Voice needing another phone number?

Haven't so far, but I know a real number is required to sign up, so who knows how long it will work..

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

#189

Post by reshie »

interwho wrote: post #166

They also aren't allowing "throwaway" VoIP numbers, so you can't even mask your main phone number - I tried signing up with both a Twilio number and a TextNow number and both failed with a "This number is not supported" error. I ended up opening a support ticket and they allowed me to bypass that requirement only after I explained that I don't have a traditional phone number.

i was able to do the same by saying i didnt have a cell phone. it took some time only one email correspondence but they are somewhat catering. twitter in this case.

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

#190

Post by hnzix »

inopinatus wrote: post #178
hnzix wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The implication being that if a system requires a verified phone number to use, then breaches are intimately tied to an individual's real identity. This is far less true of email addresses.

Your remarks only make sense to me if you're trying to remain entirely anonymous on a fetish dating system whilst simultaneously disclosing personally identifying information for reasonable use, and I can't reconcile these two objectives.

At the meta level: I use a variety of online systems that I trust to varying degrees, from high to low. Currently I can control my level of information disclosure by using different email addresses. If these systems now require a verified phone number, I then have to trust them all at 100%, tied to my real identity.

So a SaaS website requiring verified phone numbers seems benign on the surface. However if this becomes widespread then the overall identity landscape is compromised for the user.

At the system level: This is essentially the pseudonym-vs-realname debate. Twitter is the perfect example. Let's say I open an account to whisteblow on my government's nefarious activities. Now if there's a breach or state interception (eg China), they know exactly who I am and where to find me.

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