
Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number - ecmascript
https://sucky.ninja/blog/twitter-locks-all-new-user-account-in-order-to-force-them-to-give-up-their-phone-numbers
======
_jomo
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 a couple days at least. I assume this is on purpose to make it
cumbersome for spammers.

They always reply with the same boilerplate, but the account will be unlocked:

    
    
      Your account is now unlocked, and we’re sorry for the inconvenience.
       
      Twitter has automated systems that find and remove automated spam accounts and it looks like your account got caught up in one of these spam groups by mistake. This sometimes happens when an account exhibits automated behavior in violation of the Twitter Rules (https://twitter.com/rules).
    
      Again, we apologize for the inconvenience. Please do not respond to this email as replies will not be monitored.

~~~
numbsafari
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.

~~~
munk-a
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.

Again, twitter is just silliness, but the banking example is a lot more
serious of a case where the pros and cons need to be very carefully weighed.

~~~
erikpukinskis
> 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?

~~~
munk-a
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 twitter account for CS stuff
also offer email, messanger (of some sort) and phone if you have an issue you
need to resolve due to the fact that platform just isn't well suited for
business - the network effect of it is surprisingly low (a _lot_ of people
aren't on or don't regularly use twitter), it is semi-public which may violate
your business concerns and... you're handing the keys to your reputation to
the third party that has acted poorly in the past.

If you check out youtubers talking about youtubers (I have no specific example
on hand) they tend to complain endlessly about how the trending algorithms can
drive thousands of potential viewers toward or away from their channel for no
particular reason - there the network effect is strong enough that they don't
have an option though, if your business is streaming a show then YouTube
offers a much richer starting viewer base.

I guess my assumption is, if your business doesn't force you to use a
particular social media platform exclusively then... use some other
communication method per preference?

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? Maybe I'm getting too old)

~~~
anigbrowl
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.

~~~
gotocake
Instead of attacking the person who is making a fairly lengthy and supportable
argument, and basing your stance on the notion of some nebulous value “people”
find, maybe you could respond in kind? I have to say that I find myself in the
camp of Twitter being silly, except when it’s being destructive. Instead of
being dismissed as “empty-headed” I’d prefer some value proposition justifying
the previous comparison to a phone number.

Twitter seems to be a rage factory and amplifier, a shitty blogging format,
and very occasionally a way to twist the arm of recalcitrant customer service.

~~~
kingaillas
Twitter is a Rorschach test - all those things you criticize Twitter for
seeming to be (rage factory, shitty blog, etc.)? That would be entirely the
fault of the users in those specific circumstances.

The value proposition for me is receiving targeted news/information
disseminated in a convenient format. As a concrete example, I'm crewing/pacing
at a 100 mile trail run in two weeks, and I'm subscribed to that event's
twitter feed. It's the Umstead 100 in case you are curious (@Umstead100).
During the event, it will tweet out news and updates of interest to
participants, volunteers, and others.

Yes, they could probably text everyone, or continuously update the website, or
send emails - but Twitter is perfect for this situation and others like it:
content/updates produces and consumed on mobile devices, sending frequent
short updates with relevant info, etc.

Twitter has its abuses, but so does everything. Next time you're ready to shit
all over Twitter, just remember that what you are likely ACTUALLY raging about
is their userbase, i.e. the public.

~~~
lmm
> The value proposition for me is receiving targeted news/information
> disseminated in a convenient format. As a concrete example, I'm
> crewing/pacing at a 100 mile trail run in two weeks, and I'm subscribed to
> that event's twitter feed. It's the Umstead 100 in case you are curious
> (@Umstead100). During the event, it will tweet out news and updates of
> interest to participants, volunteers, and others.

> Yes, they could probably text everyone, or continuously update the website,
> or send emails - but Twitter is perfect for this situation and others like
> it: content/updates produces and consumed on mobile devices, sending
> frequent short updates with relevant info, etc.

Twitter is a poor choice for cases where you want to specifically subscribe to
something, because it's deliberately designed as a _global_ popularity
contest/rage generator. A Facebook group, Discord, heck even Tumblr or Medium
would be a better choice for that kind of use than Twitter.

> Twitter has its abuses, but so does everything. Next time you're ready to
> shit all over Twitter, just remember that what you are likely ACTUALLY
> raging about is their userbase, i.e. the public.

No, Twitter has a series of deliberate design decisions that result in worse
interactions than any other platform. The limited message size strips away
nuance and reasoned discussion, in favour of zingers and outrage. Their
algorithmic feed shows the most "engaging" tweets while suppressing the
follow-up discussion, so you'll see a controversial tweet without seeing the
existing replies or subsequent retraction. The rage storms aren't just people
being people, they're people being nudged into behaving a particular way by
Twitter's optimized-for-engagement UI. There's a reason other platforms don't
have these problems.

~~~
identity-haver
I've heard that even if you flip the "algorithmic timeline" switch off, you
still don't see a linear feed of everyone you're following. It's still
filtered and manipulated, just closer to linear.

Speaking of design decisions, here's a bit [1] about how the "quote tweet"
encourages the behavior of "dunking", a usage I have only ever heard in
regards to Twitter. Basically, if anyone with a Twitter account says something
you think is stupid, you quote tweet them and "dunk" on them about how stupid
it is and they are. Then everybody piles in and retweets the "dunk", perhaps
adding their own riposte. And the original poster is only a click away in the
quote, so you can then go to their profile and find other things to dunk on,
send mean DMs, etc.

[1] [https://slate.com/technology/2017/12/dunking-is-delicious-
an...](https://slate.com/technology/2017/12/dunking-is-delicious-and-also-
probably-making-twitter-terrible.html)

~~~
anigbrowl
_the "quote tweet" encourages the behavior of "dunking"_

Quoting people to negate or mock their argument has been around since Usenet -
well, much longer in literary terms but I'm citing Usenet as an example of a
system that's almost real-time and where it can be a spontaneous emotionally
driven decision. It may not be called 'dunking' on every platform but the
phenomenon is universal.

~~~
lmm
> Quoting people to negate or mock their argument has been around since Usenet
> - well, much longer in literary terms but I'm citing Usenet as an example of
> a system that's almost real-time and where it can be a spontaneous
> emotionally driven decision. It may not be called 'dunking' on every
> platform but the phenomenon is universal.

It may have occurred occasionally on other platforms, but the difference in
degree is enormous enough that it's a de facto difference in kind.

------
est31
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 number and the associated accounts show
up... even though the number was supposed to be _only_ for two factor auth.
Your only choice as individual user is to leave the platform.

~~~
LeifCarrotson
> Your only choice as individual user is to leave the platform.

That's not even enough anymore. You also have to make sure that every one of
your contacts do not upload their address book to conveniently find friends
like you who may or may not be on the network. And that they don't tag you in
images, events, etc.

You're an entry in the Facebook database, whether you have or have had an
active profile or not.

~~~
ams6110
This is why you should block ads and trackers even if you're not a Facebook
user. I have blocked all their domains in my hosts file also.

~~~
quakeguy
Would you mind sharing the hosts file for blocking FB and all of their
domains? I've done this too in the past, but my list seems outdated for a
while now.

~~~
gcb0
[https://someonewhocares.org/hosts/](https://someonewhocares.org/hosts/)

------
apo
Linking pseudonyms from two different networks (in this case, Twitter and the
phone system) together is a classic and serious privacy leak.

It's far from clear exactly what information Twitter, in its longtime effort
to combat spam, has already collected on its users. Throwing a phone number
into the mix expands to range of activities that can be unambiguously tied to
the same individual. Given that Twitter certainly knows IP addresses of its
users, it's trivial to do things like link site visits directly to an
individual answering the phone number.

Unfortunately, most people simply don't understand the implications of any of
this. They don't understand what an entity, "authorized" or not can do with
this kind of data. They are far too trusting of governments and other powerful
entities to do the right thing. They have not been paying attention to the
steady erosion of civil liberties around the world and can't conceive of, for
example, ever ending up in prison for some lame post they made 10 years ago.

~~~
josh_carterPDX
I agree. The first thing I thought was that someone will build a script that
creates a Twitter account then simply uses Twilio's API to create a valid
phone number to receive verifications.

Good luck Twitter!

~~~
joering2
It won’t do. Twilio (and basically majority of other virtual number providers,
except of very tiny few located in Europe) do not provide regular cell-type
text messaging capabilities, but rather something PBX pros call “short codes”.

No self-respecting provider out there, be it Twitter Facebook, Gmail, Yahoo,
Instagram, etc. will deliver your confirmation info via a short code. so you
need regular ported cell number like Verizon or Tmobile.

Twitter allows up to 5 accounts created on one cellphone number, given you
give each other few days of rest and use popular VPN.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Twilio (and basically majority of other virtual number providers, except of
> very tiny few located in Europe) do not provide regular cell-type text
> messaging capabilities, but rather something PBX pros call “short codes”.

Twilio provides both regular phone numbers with SMS and MMS capability and
short codes, the latter primarily for high-volume outbound messaging.

~~~
rsync
"Twilio provides both regular phone numbers with SMS and MMS capability and
short codes, the latter primarily for high-volume outbound messaging."

Your parent is correct - you've missed each others' points.

Twilio sourced numbers cannot _receive_ SMS from other shortcodes. No
exceptions. They are not "mobile" numbers.

So yes, your twilio sourced number can send and receive SMS and you can even
rent a shortcode from twilio and send/receive with that. What you cannot do is
get a "normal" twilio number and _receive_ shortcode messages.

For that reason, providing a twilio number to a provider like twitter or
facebook will not work - they all typically send their auth messages via
shortcode.

------
mythz
I'm assuming it's to try de-anonymize users and make bots less cost effective.

Nothing propagates faster than hate on Twitter and seeing as it's being
actively weaponized to spread propaganda, I'm all for new measures that try
slow the spread down - esp. given nothing else has worked thus far.

~~~
14
I wish there was a service out there that you could use your phone number and
they will validate that you are real for companies and they would be separate
from Twitter or any company using them so the user remains anonymous. I don't
like some of the nasty stuff the net throws my way either but I do ultimately
think if I had to choose a censored internet vs uncensored but full of
negatives, I would chose the uncensored. The internet is one of mankind's
greatest achievements. Once you start censoring it, abuses of such control
ultimately will happen.

~~~
samename
This almost sounds like something too good to be true. Big companies like
Twitter and Facebook wouldn't want to use this service because they want to
collect the data. This company would need to charge websites for the service,
otherwise their only alternative is to sell their user's data or advertise,
which leaves us right where we already are.

Of course there may be other ways for such a service to survive, but those are
my initial thoughts about seeing something like this happen. I would love for
something like this to exist, though

~~~
awad
I take the opposite view...something like this seems rather viable as a
business that companies would gladly pay money for but it also basically
sounds like another Equifax/Experian/Transunion fiasco waiting to happen. The
only logical thing I can thing of is a consortium of the big telcos creating a
shared database and service that companies could tap into.

------
daybreak
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 account started working again.

For anyone else with this issue, try:
[https://help.twitter.com/forms/signin](https://help.twitter.com/forms/signin)

~~~
dx87
I had the same thing happen. During signup it asked for my phone number but
said it was optional. A couple of minutes after I created my account, it was
locked and they said it required a phone number to prove I wasn't a bot. I
just closed out my account because I only planned to use it to follow some
people anyway.

~~~
brianpgordon
The exact same thing happened to me a few months ago.

------
banana_giraffe
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 can't do. Phone numbers are
the an option for that, and it not doubt helps block other cases Twitter wants
to block as well.

~~~
munk-a
Right now that may be the case but, I'm curious if this might cause some small
nation with an international code to succumb to the massive amounts of money
spammers will start offering for large banks of phone numbers... Looking at
you British India Ocean Territories...

~~~
jonas21
Once they noticed, they'd probably disallow that country code for
verification. And if legitimate users from that country started complaining, I
feel like "maybe you should ask your government to stop selling you out" would
be a perfectly reasonable response.

------
deogeo
It's understandable they might require a phone number to keep down spam.

It's less understandable they'd _lie_ to new users on the reasons their
account was blocked. We can't expect even the smallest scraps of honesty from
corporations anymore.

~~~
jrockway
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. Sit around in the average Twitch channel
and you'll see a flood of spam from similarly-named accounts every so often.
They get around the filters because Twitch tells you why you're filtered.
"This room is in followers only mode", so they follow the stream they want to
spam a few days/weeks in advance. "This word is not allowed by the spam
filters", so they change one letter and continue spamming that word. Etc.,
etc.

It sucks for normal users caught up in spam filters, but it's an enormous
problem that there is no easy solution to.

~~~
deogeo
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_.

~~~
est31
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 years
later, they started spamming users at those phone numbers with notifications
about what their friends did. And since this year, those numbers can be used
to search for users on the platform.

The big issue with giving those platforms your data is that you hand over
control. Even if they _promise_ you something.

~~~
katbyte
> 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.

------
tyingq
I don't use Twitter much, but every time I click on a Twitter link from my
Android phone...it pops an error page.

The page says either something about an error, or that I'm rate limited. A
page refresh usually then works fine and displays the page.

Is this related to similar attempts to block bots/spammers? Or maybe just
something wrong on my end?

~~~
ridgewell
Are you trying to do so from Firefox / a reddit app? This is fairly normal and
the general conspiracy theory is that it's an erroneous error to get you to
download the Twitter app once and for all.

~~~
tyingq
Stock chrome on an Android phone. Most often from a Twitter link on HN. I'd
say I get an error 90+% on the first try, and the refresh usually works the
first time... occasionally, I need to do two.

Bone stock phone, nothing notable about it or the browser. Doesn't happen on
my Windows or Linux desktops.

~~~
propogandist
Why would you run stock chrome on android? Use a privacy respecting browser
like firefox or Brave and install an ad-blocker like Ublock before browsing
the web.

Chrome does not respect user privacy and is designed to not support add-ons as
it will hurt Google's core advertising business.

~~~
renholder
^This guy privacies. Let me add the suggestion of CanvasBlocker, since browser
fingerprinting is a thing that _all_ of the kids are doing, nowadays.

------
interwho
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.

~~~
kgwxd
Did they require any more PII to do it over the phone?

~~~
interwho
No, I just had to open a support ticket. That said, it definitely added
significant friction to signing up, and took two days for the ticket to be
approved.

~~~
nradov
Unlike some other popular sites, at least it's _possible_ for a regular user
to open a support ticket.

------
inopinatus
We're going this way as well (requiring & verifying phone numbers, not locking
accounts).

We don't have a problem with bots, but users in the "not so tech savvy"
segment tend to switch/discard/forget their email address. Rather than try to
recover their account with us, this group will subsequently just create a new
one, and then wonder & complain that their profiles/settings/content/histories
aren't carried over. We fix them up after an identity check. It's both a
support burden and a negative user experience.

Turns out that phone numbers, whilst also subject to flux, have better long-
term congruence to identity, and thereby help us to detect account duplication
and manage it.

People also make fewer errors in entering their phone number.

It irks me that public sentiment could be normalized against supplying a phone
number due to abuse by the global-scale consumer surveillance utilities,
because those of us running trustworthy businesses can use it to legitimately
provide a better user experience.

~~~
hnzix
_> Turns out that phone numbers, whilst also subject to flux, have better
long-term congruence to identity_

Exactly why using verified phone numbers endangers a user's data. A phone
number is much closer to a their true identity than an email address, exposing
disparate system data to be cross-referenced by breaches and malicious actors.

For this very reason it's illegal in Australia to use a person's government
uuid (Tax File Number) as a username.

I'm sure the unwashed masses don't care right now, but the recent kerfuffle
over Facebook's sneaky 2FA switcheroo and other privacy sins shows that they
might care after enough scandals.

------
kaffee
Something like this happened to me. It certainly prompted me to look for
alternatives (e.g., Mastodon).

You can start small: sign into Twitter every other month. IIRC, this will
decrease the number of active users they report to investors.

~~~
nemothekid
I can't get the article to load (hugged to death?), but I'd imagine the reason
that they are finally moving on this is due to combat harassment.

I can't blame Twitter for adding friction to its sign up process because of
others abusing the platform.

~~~
Mirioron
I could blame them, but considering everything else wrong with Twitter there
is no point. Avoiding Twitter is easy and you lose very little.

------
packet_nerd
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.

~~~
H1Supreme
> I do have a Google voice number, but I noticed one or two places recently
> that won't accept that anymore.

Mind sharing where? I've use my Google Voice number exclusively for 6 or 7
years now. Can't say I've ever ran into such a thing.

~~~
brownbat
Sites that require phone number verification often block numbers allocated for
VoIP services for fear of spammers. YMMV if you've tethered your GV number to
a physical device at some point.

I've run into this semi-frequently over the years, and it's always extremely
frustrating when it happens, but somehow I can't remember exactly where
either.

Old references online point to Facebook, Line, and Snapchat:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Googlevoice/comments/3uv3mt/google_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Googlevoice/comments/3uv3mt/google_voice_number_invalid_on_facebook/)

~~~
elektor
I can back this claim up. I was unable to verify my Citi credit card over the
phone using my Google Voice number, they insisted on a non-VoIP number which
ultimately delayed the verification process by a week.

------
burtonator
This is the new norm... expect all services to require phone numbers due to
spam and propaganda.

~~~
Pfhreak
I have a really split opinion about this. On the one hand I've seen a lot of
really hateful stuff lobbed around on sites like Twitter, and I suspect that
linking accounts to phone numbers would dramatically reduce that. On the other
hand, I'm not sure I want Twitter (et. al.) knowing my phone number.

~~~
zipperhead
I agree. I would rather pay them some fee. But they don't seem to want to
monetize their service via user fees.

~~~
jordanwallwork
Seems like it would make a lot of sense for them to offer both options; either
would discourage bots, and you'd give people the choice whether to go the free
route or the privacy-conscious route

~~~
hombre_fatal
Surely a phone number is no more identifying than a credit card payment in the
age of KYC.

And accepting a cryptocurrency would probably have little impact on all the
lucrative scams that get spammed around Twitter.

------
germainelol
There may be negatives to this, but if you listen to any recent talks with
Jack Dorsey, he is genuinely concerned about combating the amount of fake
accounts on Twitter. Of course, it's both a moral issue and a business issue
but that's beyond the point. If giving my phone number to Twitter means it can
have an ever so slight positive impact on the amount of trolls and fake
accounts on Twitter, then it's a good thing to me...

However, we have seen with Facebook that giving your phone number doesn't
necessarily work in combating trolls, so I'd be interested in how exactly they
will use it.

------
vengefulduck
The link seems down: [http://archive.is/tj3X7](http://archive.is/tj3X7)

------
puttycat
Handy tip: buy the cheapest pre-charged SIM and use it for this kind of
verifications.

~~~
mirimir
That still allows geolocation. But one can lease hosted SIMs. Actual SIMs in
server farms. So they're "real" mobile numbers. Just not located where you
are.

~~~
gruez
>That still allows geolocation.

I doubt twitter is going to get your cell tower location just from your phone
number. Sure, the cell provider has it and is probably keeping it around, but
unless you attract significant attention to yourself (eg. bomb threat), it's
not going to be disclosed. If you're really paranoid you can use it a few
blocks away from your usual location.

~~~
inapis
Um wasn’t there a case where one of the big 3 providers in US was selling real
time location data?

~~~
gruez
The ToS of those providers prohibit the use of that except with explicit
consent. I'm aware that the providers do little verification that consent was
given, but I'm doubt that established companies such as facebook or twitter
are going to risk a PR fiasco to get better anti-fraud numbers.

~~~
propogandist
Yeah...in theory. They'll sell the data until it becomes a big news item

[https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/01/t-mobile-
sprint-...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/01/t-mobile-sprint-and-
att-still-selling-your-location-data-report-says/)

------
Komodoro
Its a bit weird complaining about a platform asking for your phone number when
in the past tweeter worked only via sms.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter#Format](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter#Format)
Lucky those that created their accounts early on. Forcing us to put more data
then what is needed should be banned from any social platform. I really don't
get any of this eager race to collect all personal data possible. Google is
already on to us with Chrome and Android. If people were really afraid of this
they wouldn't even buy phones, do phone calls (from land line) or even send a
personal registered mail (it could be violated). Hell, trust no one with your
secrets. Don't even write it in a diary, someone may reconstruct it even after
you burn it to ashes (I see a lot of CSI). Still good to be updated on this.

------
PinguTS
They are requiring a mobile phone number for some time now even when not on
VPN, TOR and alike.

This is very worrying that more and more services are requiring a mobile
number, especially for services that are used with business background. That
means, in your business you need to have a business mobile. You need to track
who registered with what phone number and so on. Email accounts are much
easier to manage. But mobile numbers is a big problem, especially when
employees leave and mobiles get deactivated.

------
newnewpdro
To add insult to injury, not only do they lock your account almost immediately
after you've created it without a phone number - unless you managed to change
its settings to not spam your email address you will now be locked out of
changing the setting and they will send you spam nearly every day.

Attempting to stop the spam through the in-email link just brings you back to
the "locked account give us a phone number" flow.

Twitter is trash.

------
ahkonow
Anything tied to a phone number is inherently insecure, these things are
becoming like SSNs but even more problematic. I haven't had a true phone
number in a couple years, but I guess if I ever need to create a new twitter
account I will need to get one?

------
miohtama
Here is a Google research paper on how adding the phone number verification
will affect the cost of bot user account on black markets:

static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.com/en/us/pubs/archive/43134.pdf

~~~
sparkie
What it doesn't include: The cost of the users you will lose because you have
a dog shit user experience blocking people before they even get to sample your
service.

~~~
miohtama
An excellent point. Do you know any studies that would a price tag on this?

~~~
sparkie
You can't put a price on it. Imagine, for example, if when Donald Trump was
signing up for Twitter, he got irked off and decided to use a different
platform instead. That's potentially 60M people using your competitor. Poor
user experience can decide the entire success or failure of your service or
product.

People generally have too much tolerance because they've been programmed to
accept bad user experience as normal. Services which require you to confirm an
email are the typical example.

Imagine a door salesman came to your door, pitched you a product, but before
you discussed any price or subscription, they ask "please can you go and get a
shovel while I take a dump on your doorstep?" Well, that's the kind of
experience people get online.

------
smhenderson
When I signed up for Twitter it was so I could post short messages from my
phone that hopefully my friends and family would see and perhaps some small
number of other, random users. You’re phone was your ID essentially.

I guess we’ve come full circle.

------
ehnto
I once signed up for an account and didn't give a phone number. Everything was
fine and I filled out my profile. Later that day my account was restricted for
"suspicious activity" ( I hadn't done anything except fill in the bio ) and
the only way to reinstate it was to verify my account with a phone number.

Now, I am not saying it was a nefarious way to get my phone number. It's more
likely a side effect of processes designed over time by many people.

But if I were trying to sneakily require someone to give me a phone number
without explicitly saying so, that is how I would do it.

------
hsnewman
So what your saying is that after doing so much damage to the USA democracy,
they are using a poor form of 2 factor authentication? I'm not impressed.

------
subway
I don't like this for today's Twitter, but it _is_ mildly interesting to
consider that once upon a time Twitter's main ui was SMS based.

------
manfredo
I'm seeing conspicuous parallels with YikYak. YikYak was facing an abusive
userbase that proved difficult to moderate or restrain. Then they introduced
the phone number requirement which did seem to reduce abuse. But of course
YikYak died not so long after.

Granted, Twitter is in a very different position than YikYak. Curbing user
growth in order to afford a better experience for the existing users is likely
a good tradeoff.

------
Crontab
> Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number

Fuck. That.

------
ArtDev
Perhaps Twitter is following Facebook which has been deceptive harvesting
phone numbers under the guise of "security" for years now.
[https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/27/yes-facebook-is-using-
your...](https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/27/yes-facebook-is-using-your-2fa-
phone-number-to-target-you-with-ads/)

------
Merkur
Your phone nummer is global unique id of your person. Even more as many
nations require you register the phone number with personal informations.

------
systematical
This doesn't really solve the problem. But it does make it a pain in the butt
for me to just create an anonymous account to bitch about random stuff on,
which I've tried over TOR before and they don't make it easy. If I am highly
motivated to create fake account, I'll create a fake account through a burner
or more some service like twilio.

------
donretag
It also happened to me. Signed up using an Outlook webmail account,
residential IP, Firefox with Incognito Mode and Ghostery.

Once your account is disabled, the ability to delete (oops, I meant
deactivate) your account is gone. I emailed support to delete my account since
I am now unable to do so, and instead they re-enabled the account.

~~~
lightedman
You've done what you can to terminate the business relationship. Any further
contact from them is CAN-SPAM territory and you should get a lawyer.

------
david_f
Created 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')

~~~
jak92
You'll probably be locked out shortly if you haven't yet.

------
neiman
Am I the only person here who sees it as a problem since I _don 't have_ a
phone number?

~~~
phreack
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.

------
sneak
You also can’t reuse the phone number across different accounts, so I am
locked out of about ten of my usernames (locked for “suspicious activity” even
though they have been idle for a year or more) unless I give Burner or someone
else a ton of money. It sucks.

------
troxwalt
When they first started, tweets were sent from your own phone as an SMS,
weren't they?

~~~
zackkitzmiller
Yup. Twttr was basically SMS only.

------
sasasassy
Good, it's a terrible service so I support any terrible practices they choose
to support in speeding towards their demise. It's always been just a platform
for the self entitled (verified profiles) to spread their gospel to the
masses.

------
justforfunhere
Going by the number of Spam SMSs I get, I know that my mobile number is
already out there in hundreds of databases.

I don't get this "I won't give my number" thing.

Your number is already out there and is being sold as part of a list all the
time.

~~~
krageon
I know for a fact some people had the wherewithal to not disclose their phone
number to everyone who asked and therefore do not have your particular breed
of problems. Your outright dismissal of their right to privacy is therefore
tenuous at best, as it's founded on a premise that is untrue.

------
xtat
[https://smsprivacy.org/](https://smsprivacy.org/)

------
commandlinefan
This is great news, I've been waiting for an alternative to Twitter to take
over its dominance.

------
jokoon
I logged on twitter 3 days ago, I almost never log in, it seems my account was
disabled.

------
mediocrejoker
Is it just me or is adding a phone number required to enable other 2FA methods
like U2F?

------
vonuebelgarten
Why the hell aren't we migrating to the Fediverse (aka Mastodon) _en masse_ ?

------
ccnafr
Twitter has done this for years.

------
davidgrenier
It should say... mobile phone as I'm sure this won't work with my landline.

------
lucisferre
Probably part of their strategy to abandon the web and move back to their SMS
roots.

------
TheLuddite
Good, they should push this to all old account retroactively as well.

------
bob_theslob646
Is there any other way to do long-term verification?

------
aboutruby
I guess the price of old accounts is going up a bit.

------
ProAm
Twitter should have imploded years ago. No one seems to remember that Donald
Trump saved Twitter. It was for sale and couldn't find a buyer, no one wanted
the CEO position so they bribed the old CEO to step back in, losing TONS of
money. Then the at time presidential candidate used Twitter to market his
campaign. It's harmful social commentary that forces
people/media/influences/etc to use catchy one-liners to spike retweets. People
are mad that the media and journalist are overly sensationalizing but Twitter
users just feed the machine.

~~~
danso
It's true that in late 2016, Twitter was reported to be potentially bid on and
purchased by companies like Google and Salesforce [0]. Though looking at its
stock price history, it remained around its end-of-2016 price, until 2018 when
it finally showed a profit in late 2017 [1]. In that time, according to that
Recode article, its user count only increased by 3% from 2017 to 2018, and
revenue only increased by 12%, comparing 2018Q1 to 2016Q1 (Facebook's revenue
went up 122% in that period). As a frequent Twitter user for the past decade,
my impression is that maybe Trump's election made Twitter more of an
"official" place for "important" things. But that added prestige also resulted
in far more scrutiny that Twitter had ever had regarding bots and abusive
behavior, necessitating them to have actual measures and policies (and,
presumably, more staff dedicated towards that).

I don't think it's definitive to say that Trump directly saved Twitter,
though. Twitter was already on a trajectory to be the place for breaking news.
Whereas Facebook's attempt at such as basically imploded. But maybe Trump's
habit of using Twitter so prominently basically cemented Twitter as a habit
for many other users, especially those in the media.

0: [https://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/23/twitter-may-receive-
formal-b...](https://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/23/twitter-may-receive-formal-bid-
shortly-suitors-said-to-include-salesforce-and-google.html)

1: [https://www.recode.net/2018/6/13/17455464/twitter-jack-
dorse...](https://www.recode.net/2018/6/13/17455464/twitter-jack-dorsey-stock-
growth-explained-profitability)

------
trymas
It's worse in FB.

"We detected suspicious behaviour in your account. Please send a copy of your
ID to prove your identity. We promise we'll delete the image of your ID within
30 days." [0]

Yeah, right! They'll delete the image, but will still have the data...

So now I have a FB account I would like to delete, but cannot, because I
cannot log into it. Should I just believe in GDPR, unblock my account and
request for total deletion of data about me?

[0] Obviously not a citation. Just paraphrasing

------
gustavmarwin
smsprivacy.org - it's not cheap but if you need it, it's working great.

------
tehjoker
Just a reminder that tech companies will do anything to make more certain
predictions for the sake of an ever expanding circle of clients:

[https://theintercept.com/2019/02/02/shoshana-zuboff-age-
of-s...](https://theintercept.com/2019/02/02/shoshana-zuboff-age-of-
surveillance-capitalism/)

------
frankzen
Should be subtitled "Twitter prepares to lose more than half of its users"...

------
nemoniac
Could it be argued that this is in contravention of the GDPR? Can Twitter
demonstrate that it's necessary for them too have a phone number to provide
their service?

------
MichaelBosworth
Le sigh.

This sort of thing is why I made phitbone.com

------
pdkl95
Requiring a phone number causes problems and, depending on the situation, is
easily bypassed by a determined bot author. [see other comments in this
thread] It is also ineffective at preventing people from posting rude,
misguided, or hateful comments (people post terrible crap under their own name
on Twitter/etc all the time).

Bad actors causing problems on a globally-accessible platform is not a new
problem. Multiplayer games from MUDs to the modern MMORPG have several decades
of experience with the problem[1]. Most attempts at fixing the problem don't
work, because they are don't _guarantee_ the bad actor has to pay what they
_perceive_ to be a large cost. Unless the incentives are fixed, bad actors
will continue to be a problem.

(I'm summarizing; for as much better explanation, see Raph Koster's talk[1])

Cost does _not_ mean money or anything that is widely available (like a phone
number). Credit card numbers are trivial to change, and phone numbers are
cheap. The cost to the potential bad actor has to be something they _don 't
want_ to pay. In an MMORPG, deleting the high-level character that someone
spent 20+ hours leveling up hurts a _lot_ more than having to provide a
(potentially new) phone or credit card number.

To make a serious punishment like character deletion legitimate, there needs
to be some sort of publicly visible _due process of law_ involved before it
can be used. That means being informed of the specific accusations instead of
Google-style banning for unspecified TOS violations. That means a legitimate
appeals process that doesn't simply send appeals to /dev/null or handed to the
accuser to judge if the appeal is legitimate (like YouTube's content_id (not
DMCA) takedowns).

How could this work on something like Twitter? Banning a troll only forces
them to make a new account (a minor expense). Hiding all of their comments for
a while (or eventually deleting them if the bad behavior continues) denies the
troll the fruits of their misbehavior.

Of course, bots and bad actors is only part of the reason Twitter wants a
phone number. Without a Ulysses pact[2] binding their future behavior, Twitter
is free to continue acting as a surveillance capitalist[3].

[1] [https://www.gdcvault.com/play/1024060/Still-Logged-In-
What-A...](https://www.gdcvault.com/play/1024060/Still-Logged-In-What-AR)
(everybody developing anything involved (directly or indirectly) with the
internet should watch this talk)

[2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlN6wjeCJYk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlN6wjeCJYk)
(
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulysses_pact](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulysses_pact)
)

[3] [http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/02/shoshana-zuboff-q-
and...](http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/02/shoshana-zuboff-q-and-a-the-
age-of-surveillance-capital.html)

------
the8472
Is that even GDPR-compliant?

~~~
sadris
Twitter is a US corporation.

------
i6tjvo
I'm sure it's not all, but just some, depending on your IP address and some
other factors.

------
okko12
I think a better solution is :

When user post a tweet.

She/He can choose whether this post require only authorized user can
reply/retweet

------
Swaglord333
Lol don't use Twitter

------
ibejoeb
It was only months ago that Lime and Bird were accused of racism and other
discriminatory behavior due to the requirement that users have mobile phones
to unlock the scooters. It was enough for them to develop cash-based access
systems. Why is it acceptable for Twitter? Should I not be allowed to sign up
on a public terminal and tweet without a mobile phone?

~~~
feketegy
This is what I don't get. Twitter is a company, a social network which has its
own internal rules.

When you sign up, you accept the terms & conditions, now which requires that
you have a valid phone number to use the platform. If this is not convenient
for you, why should Twitter change? Why not just move on to other services?

To me it seems like that people want to be part of the "community" and sign up
on the platform, but still dictate their own rules. Why would Twitter consider
such users?

~~~
ibejoeb
That's essentially the question I'm asking. The outrage seems arbitrary. Is it
just that Twitter has been around for over a decade and Lime, e.g., is new?

It seems reasonable to me that Twitter can require a phone. Why doesn't that
extend to other entities?

