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Comment by JensRex | Hacker News Reader

>Create a new account under a pseudonym.

I've not been on Facebook for years, and I tried doing this recently. It was relentless in pestering me for a phone number for "security reasons". It would not accept any of the online SMS services I found. I ended up abandoning it.

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Sounds like a job for a burner phone.

Why would someone buy a whole new phone just to use a shitty advertising network they explicitly did not want to use?

Who said anything about a phone? Prepaid SIM cards are free, top one up with £5 and you're good to go.

> Sounds like a job for a burner phone.

I mean it's right there...

Right, but the "phone" part of a burner phone is essentially superfluous, it's the sim card that serves the purpose here. Of course you need to put it into something but it doesn't matter what. You can swap your main sim card with a "burner" sim, get the code to authenticate, then swap back. It takes 2 minutes.

You can get a free SIM, but even if you have to pay 5$ or whatever... many people still need to use facebook messenger to get in touch with some people, for instance.

and then what, run the spyware on my main phone, so it can have all of my data and my friends data?

m.facebook.com for the social network

mbasic.facebook.com for chat

No apps needed

Even if you take it literally as a physical phone instead of SIM, the SMS verification works equally well with 20 EUR Nokia dumbphone as with the latest iPhone.

Because due to network effects they effectively have to use it.

Yes, but there's no way I'm investing neither money nor time in jumping through silly Facebook hoops. What's to stop them from suddenly requiring dental x-rays, or some other nonsense, for "security reasons"?

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