[tor-talk] tor + twitter issues

Mike Perry mikeperry at torproject.org
Tue Sep 15 03:27:34 UTC 2015


Colin Mahns:
> * Tempest <tempest at bitmessage.ch> [2015-09-14 00:08:44 +0000]:
> 
> >to sum up, twitter now appears to be desiring phone numbers from tor
> >users in order to use their service. without feedback, i expect this
> >will get worse. over the past 30 days, twitter has regularly locked me
> >out and required password resets. this is the first time i've been
> >required to provide a phone number to get my account unlocked.
> 
> Sadly Twitter seems to have been enforcing this over the past year[0] or
> so, and there doesn't seem to be an end in sight. IIRC, Twitter tries to
> do this in an attempt to try and curtail perceived abuse and/or trolls
> from using Twitter as a platform, but they go about it in the worst way
> possible.
> 
> The hashtag #TwitterTorLockout[1] has been used by several members of
> the community (including devs) to voice their complaints about Twitter
> doing this, but as you can see nothing has improved.

If you have Bitcoin, you can buy some SMS numbers for getting out of
this lockout without giving up your real phone number:
http://receivesmsonline.com/buynumbers

That service also has free numbers available on their front page:
http://receivesmsonline.com/, but those are likely to already be
flagged/overused. Also, you might risk getting your account
extra-special-locked by trying to use a free one that Twitter knows
about.
 
> Does anyone on this list has contacts in Twitter who might be open to
> talking with the community, can you ask them to join this list? I really
> would love to see this issue resolved along with my account not being
> locked out.

Yeah, maybe. However, once a company starts down this path, it tends to
become entrenched beyond all rational thought. I am not optimistic that
Twitter will be any different.

Welcome to the Nymwars 2.0!

-- 
Mike Perry
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