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Comment by ranger_danger | Hacker News Reader

I cannot even use Discord if I wanted to... every time I try to sign up I get immediately phone-walled and/or banned, and the appeal is always denied with "our automated system is working properly." I have been trying for close to ten(!) years now off and on, with all different combinations of browsers, OSes, ISPs and physical machines. No VPN or proxy either.

And even if I was able to register, that "automated system" still randomly bans people whenever it feels like it. Search the r/discordapp subreddit or just google "discord random ban", it's a widespread problem with no solution and I have no idea how so many other people seem to have no issues, yet at the same time you can find lots of people just as frustrated as me.

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"Automated system discriminating against me with no appeal or recourse" may not be the biggest injustice in the world right now, but I fear/loathe that it seems like it's going to keep getting bigger.

A bug blocking functionality is an annoyance, but a Scarlet Letter branded onto a secret dossier is terrifying.

Does phone-walled mean you have to verify with a phone number? Are you unable to do it because it doesn’t work, or because you don’t want to give it your phone number?

Most likely they don't want to. It's ridiculous that you would need to give your phone number for some chat program.

Is it? In a world full of LLMs and limited privacy preserving verification methods?

Unless we come up with a global, double blind cryptographic government ID system, this is the reality of the internet.

It doesn't really solve spam in a meaningful way in practice.

Yes it does

I still see a constant barrage of spam messages, direct or group.

Since you need to provide a phone number to sign up for Discord is the reason I never will.

There should be no reason for a phone number and nor do I want to waste my time trying to buy pass it with internet provided single use numbers.

Unless it is a service I must use, then I will provide a phone number. If it is a service I get to choose to use then I will never provide a number.

Yes to all 3.

Even times when I've given up and put in a real phone number that has never been used with Discord, it still just bans me immediately after verifying, so they basically just stole the number.

On the two occasions I’ve tried to chat with someone on the public Matrix server, I was completely unable to get it to work. I’ve tried with the new Mac app and with some older thing years ago.

So… choose your poison? I’m sure Matrix/Element works for someone or they would be out of business, but it does not work for me.

I have a similar issue with Matrix as well... even though it's federated, most large rooms use the same bots and blocklists so I end up getting banned from many rooms before I've even attempted to join.

Apparently my monopoly ISP rotates IPs fairly often and I am sharing them with people that have been doing bad things with them, so not only are many Matrix channels blocked but even large regular websites like etsy or locals are completely blocked for me as well. Anything with a CF captcha is also an infinite loop.

As far as I know I wasn’t banned or restricted or anything. The client just never managed to create a room or initiate a chat or whatever they called it.

What email provider are you using? I can confirm some of them do trigger "phonewalls".

I had the same issue but in instagram, not for personal use, but few years ago I made few startups, and every time I register the company I create few social accounts, all works well except instagram for some reason, always get flagged and asked to take a selfie with a book or something.. and even after providing that selfie I still get perma banned! I tried to call support, like how you would expect from any company let alone a multi billion one, only to find out that there’s actually no support in anywhere in fecebook wise! And the only way you can get something fixed is through a secret syndicate-like community where you should know someone who knows someone to talk to some person there to fix your issue. Long story short, never bothered with that shitty company again, good riddance.

If you live in a GDPR country, you could try that — they're required to explain automated profiling.

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