[epoch1970]

I don't know if it's still like this, but when I last tried to create a Twitter account it required a phone number and some kind of verification by phone. That's something I refuse to do.

I can sort of understand requiring that to try to combat the creation of spam accounts, for instance. But it made the service pretty much unusable for me.

Unless it's as easy to create an account there as it is to create one here or at reddit, I'll never bother with Twitter.

[aanm1988]

You don't have to give them a phone number. They will let you sign up without it.

Then flag immediately as a bot and refuse to let you do anything without a phone number.

Lame Twitter. Lame.

[wapz]

Yup I made an account several years ago to tweet to a support staff because I couldn't login. The next day my account was "suspended" or banned for something like "being a bot." Never looked back.

[SeanBoocock]

That feels like a vestige of Twitter's origins as a heavily SMS focused service. Even if that is true, though, odd to have such a high friction element to the registration flow for what is now a niche use case.

[fragmede]

It's intentional, in an attempt to reduce spammers and trolls. Gmail also includes receiving an SMS in the signup flow.