<story><title>Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number</title><url>https://sucky.ninja/blog/twitter-locks-all-new-user-account-in-order-to-force-them-to-give-up-their-phone-numbers</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>munk-a</author><text>This is slightly different though, twitter is silly and unnecessary - access to your money is not.&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;p&gt;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.</text></item><item><author>numbsafari</author><text>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.</text></item><item><author>_jomo</author><text>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&amp;#x27;t tweeted and not broken any rules.&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;p&gt;They always reply with the same boilerplate, but the account will be unlocked:&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  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:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;twitter.com&amp;#x2F;rules).

  Again, we apologize for the inconvenience. Please do not respond to this email as replies will not be monitored.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>distant_hat</author><text>Eh. It is the primary communication mode for the current US president.</text></comment>
<story><title>Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number</title><url>https://sucky.ninja/blog/twitter-locks-all-new-user-account-in-order-to-force-them-to-give-up-their-phone-numbers</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>munk-a</author><text>This is slightly different though, twitter is silly and unnecessary - access to your money is not.&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;p&gt;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.</text></item><item><author>numbsafari</author><text>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.</text></item><item><author>_jomo</author><text>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&amp;#x27;t tweeted and not broken any rules.&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;p&gt;They always reply with the same boilerplate, but the account will be unlocked:&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  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:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;twitter.com&amp;#x2F;rules).

  Again, we apologize for the inconvenience. Please do not respond to this email as replies will not be monitored.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>erikpukinskis</author><text>&amp;gt; twitter is just sillines&lt;p&gt;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?</text></comment>