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Comment by sneak | Hacker News Reader

You can't create a usable Twitter account without providing a phone number, however, so this is effectively a meaningless gesture.

Twitter does not want Twitter users to have privacy or pseudonymity from Twitter.

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You can just use a service like SMSPVA, phone verification doesn't break anonymity. It's a reasonable anti-spam measure, you have to burn a tiny amount of cryptocurrency in order to register.

Many of these services use a limited pool of phone numbers that have already been used to register accounts on Twitter, and Twitter won't let you use them for fresh signups.

SMSPVA has thousands of numbers that haven't been used on twitter, it also wont recycle the same numbers for the same service.

Glad to hear they thought of that - I haven't used this particular service before. However, I just looked at it and there are zero United States numbers available to rent for Twitter signups right now.

I could use one of the European numbers but given my experience with how sensitive Twitter is to sketchiness I'm guessing I'd get more random phone number verification requests.

IME twitter doesn't care at all about which country your number is from.

cryptocurrency isn’t anonymous though?

What do you mean? Monero is definitely anonymous. Obviously all cryptocurrencies aren't anonymous, but anyone with half a brain can understand that I'm referring to anonymous cryptocurrencies.

Sometimes you can't even view tweets if you're not logged in (there are workarounds though). Viewing media and threads also has extremely limited functionality in embedded contexts.

This move is actually hilarious considering Twitter's policies.

Yeah you can. I created 3 in the last 3 months for different projects without linking a phone number. You just click register with email.

The account will be effectively suspended after following more than about ten people until you add a phone number.

Unfortunately I just checked with the new onion service and it appears nothing else has changed in that regard.

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