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Twitter is Holding Phoneless Accounts Hostage and This is Not OK!

Last posted Jan 09, 2020 at 06:52PM EST. Added Jan 06, 2020 at 05:46AM EST
16 posts from 7 users

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As I'm sure you all know, Twitter is cancerous. But sometimes it's good to use it.

But I've noticed something that I have been able to replicate on three occasions. Have you ever tried to sign up to Twitter without a phone number?

Make an alt account now and see how long until your account is seized and locked for "suspicious behaviour" or any other reason. It took me less than 2 minutes. And I'll show you with video proof.

To show you just how quickly my account got locked out by Twitter without a phone number, I put charting song Lollypop (Candyman) by Aqua (yes, this is my unit of measurement) on as soon as I gained complete access to my account and had it stop when I lost access to my account.

As you can see, I did not even make it to the first verse before my account was held hostage by Twitter.

This is not the first time I have not had this happen. I have had this happen to my accounts multiple times. However, other people I have asked who did give Twitter their phone number, have never once had their account locked.

This is not OK. And I think it is pretty clear that they are deliberately holding Twitter accounts hostage in order to sell their phone numbers, spam them with texts and mine their phone numbers.

I am not the only person experiencing this. See this post from 2017. I encourage everyone here to try this and see how long until their account gets held for ransom by Twitter.

This should not happen. I should not be forced to give up my phone number for Twitter. And allowing them to continue doing this sets a dangerous precedent.

How long until other services hold your account hostage? We need to stop this shit now. Twitter shouldn't get away with this utter cancer.

So what are your thoughts?

Last edited Jan 06, 2020 at 05:50AM EST

Twitter is possibly the single most attacked online service of the decade by bots and large-scale automation (except us yikes). It's such a bad problem that there are entire services dedicated to determining what percentage of one's following is made up of bots. The FCC is suspected of using it to artificially create public support for the anti-Net Neutrality movement, and it is well-documented that large-scale Twitter bots are being used to influence American Elections both past and present. In other words, Twitter is pretty justified in their heavy-handed approach to curbing bot accounts, and linking accounts to a device with a unique handle (i.e a phone with a SIM card, which grants a unique number) is a reasonable way to go about this.

There's probably an ulterior motive here, but Twitter cares much more for stopping the over 48 million bots on their platform than raking in the phone numbers. Facebook, on the other hand…

Last edited Jan 06, 2020 at 09:50AM EST

Ozzzim wrote:

Have you tried:
a) Not using a throwaway email?
b) Not writing immediately a political statement that could be easily mistaken for a tactical bot attack?

Because that worked so well for my last accounts.

Doeoeod wrote:

Twitter is possibly the single most attacked online service of the decade by bots and large-scale automation (except us yikes). It's such a bad problem that there are entire services dedicated to determining what percentage of one's following is made up of bots. The FCC is suspected of using it to artificially create public support for the anti-Net Neutrality movement, and it is well-documented that large-scale Twitter bots are being used to influence American Elections both past and present. In other words, Twitter is pretty justified in their heavy-handed approach to curbing bot accounts, and linking accounts to a device with a unique handle (i.e a phone with a SIM card, which grants a unique number) is a reasonable way to go about this.

There's probably an ulterior motive here, but Twitter cares much more for stopping the over 48 million bots on their platform than raking in the phone numbers. Facebook, on the other hand…

I wasn't aware of that. That makes it more understandable, but they're clearly fucking something up if innocent people's accounts are getting attacked.

The Glorious Lobster Emperor wrote:

Because that worked so well for my last accounts.

Alright, let's go through those other accounts.
Could you please write down an estimate of how long each lasted, how many tweets each one had, what was roughly the content of those tweets (especially the last one), their respective email service and whether you were using any special software (VPN, TOR etc).

Ozzzim wrote:

Alright, let's go through those other accounts.
Could you please write down an estimate of how long each lasted, how many tweets each one had, what was roughly the content of those tweets (especially the last one), their respective email service and whether you were using any special software (VPN, TOR etc).

First account. Few months old. Often posted about politics because my country is on fire. Locked 3 times. Each time mentioning I was not going to give them my phone number.

Next account. Made, logged in, posted, logged out, was locked. Put in ticket to appeal, never was responded to. About a minute.

Final account, political. Logged in, retweeted a few things, posted, locked. Maybe 5 minutes.

Ozzzim wrote:

Have you tried:
a) Not using a throwaway email?
b) Not writing immediately a political statement that could be easily mistaken for a tactical bot attack?

Just to make doubly sure, yesterday I made another account. I used it for a bit just commenting about trains, and logged out. I checked back on it today.

Sure as hell, it was locked. I didn't go post any political attacks, just stuff about trains. And it was locked.

If you asked me whether either of those accounts were real, I would answer "no," because the behavior exhibited by these accounts immediately after creation screams "bot."
To elaborate, what would a bot do upon creation of a new account? It would start sending messages that look legit, but are suspicious. Generic statements, no real substance to any post. To the eye of anyone reviewing the account's activity, it looks as if someone has created a bot that mimics human behavior, but falls just short of effective emulation. The lack of detail in the account information, the fact that it immediately started sending messages in rapid succession; it's easy to see why these accounts are getting banned. Not wrongfully either, since these accounts are, by your own admission, fake.

If you want clarification on exactly why they are banning your accounts, review this page for an explanation.

Snarb wrote:

If you asked me whether either of those accounts were real, I would answer "no," because the behavior exhibited by these accounts immediately after creation screams "bot."
To elaborate, what would a bot do upon creation of a new account? It would start sending messages that look legit, but are suspicious. Generic statements, no real substance to any post. To the eye of anyone reviewing the account's activity, it looks as if someone has created a bot that mimics human behavior, but falls just short of effective emulation. The lack of detail in the account information, the fact that it immediately started sending messages in rapid succession; it's easy to see why these accounts are getting banned. Not wrongfully either, since these accounts are, by your own admission, fake.

If you want clarification on exactly why they are banning your accounts, review this page for an explanation.

No one has explained why that suddenly makes my other accounts that weren't doing this sort of stuff locked.

What the hell am I supposed to do on Twitter? Never post at all? I don't believe for a second any humans were involved in either of these accounts. And I certainly don't believe they were involved in the account I actually tried to use.

Even if you think that these were bad examples, what the hell am I doing that gets an account locked 3 times?

Especially because in the anti-spam section it asks this: "When we detect suspicious levels of activity, accounts may be locked and prompted to provide additional information (e.g., a phone number) or to solve a reCAPTCHA." but there sure as shit isn't any or there. Isn't the point of a damn CAPTCHA to filter out bots? Once you solve one, you should be allowed back in your account, not told "OH BTW GIB PHONE NUMBER."

Have you tried not relying on VPN or a Proxy all the time? Generally these big boys have systems in place that if your account gets logged in from a location that doesn't match your former location one bit, your account gets locked as a security measure.

Generally how these security measures are then cleared are by them sending a code to your phone number to confirm "yes, this is me". This is to counter hackers and bots.

A fluid IP is a solid way to trigger this.

The Glorious Lobster Emperor wrote:

Just to make doubly sure, yesterday I made another account. I used it for a bit just commenting about trains, and logged out. I checked back on it today.

Sure as hell, it was locked. I didn't go post any political attacks, just stuff about trains. And it was locked.

Well, this certainly feels more legit than your previous attempt. You did write to an MP, but I'm slightly more inclined to believe you. That being said you still haven't disclosed whether you use any proxies. If you do use TOR that's an obvious red flag for Twitter. If you don't use anything then maybe your IP got flagged as bot address or something.

Ozzzim wrote:

Well, this certainly feels more legit than your previous attempt. You did write to an MP, but I'm slightly more inclined to believe you. That being said you still haven't disclosed whether you use any proxies. If you do use TOR that's an obvious red flag for Twitter. If you don't use anything then maybe your IP got flagged as bot address or something.

I use NordVPN so I can get around restrictions on YouTube.

RandomMan wrote:

Have you tried not relying on VPN or a Proxy all the time? Generally these big boys have systems in place that if your account gets logged in from a location that doesn't match your former location one bit, your account gets locked as a security measure.

Generally how these security measures are then cleared are by them sending a code to your phone number to confirm "yes, this is me". This is to counter hackers and bots.

A fluid IP is a solid way to trigger this.

Seems like you guys think my VPN is triggering this.

I'll see if turning it off when I use Twitter works for my next account.

Skeletor-sm

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