But on twitter you don't need to give anyone your real name. THAT'S the thing. There should be no way to tie your twitter account to you, unless you specifically allow them to share your information.

Sure, that's what the other replies above the comment I replied to are saying, but this is specific to phone numbers

A lot of people are not aware of the fact this information is all public

Isn’t that really for twitter to decide?

Besides, weren’t the people who had opted out from the “Let people who have your phone number find you on Twitter” unaffected by this?