they let me create an account and then locked it and wanted to know my phone number before they would unlock it. I can't even go delete it without giving them personal information.
Google will not allow use of certain features (setting a thumbnail for a YouTube video) without giving your phone number. So it seems mor can play this game.
Yeah, I was contemplating to maybe start a Twitter account, but didn't because of that. They do this pretty much on every account creation after a couple of hours, I guess so that you'd have some time to get on the hook.
I'm kinda used to that and accepted that, apparently, I will never use Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or Google account because of that. Whatever, I don't care. What was really infuriating, though, is when PayPal asked me to enter my phone "to make my account even safer". Fuck them, but having problems with PayPal is quite a bit more annoying than being unable to use some social media bullshit.
Google does a variant of that for one of my (rarely used) email accounts. On every day I attempt to log in, they throw a coin. Heads they let me in, tails they don't let me in unless I provide a phone number.
i got the same issue a few weeks ago, account is almost 2 years old yet they decided to lock it (my following count was set to 0 and i could not tweet anymore), with only way to unlock it being giving them my phone number
however, i managed to unlock it somehow, first i sent them a trouble ticket asking why i could not tweet anymore (which immediately got me an email that said my account was locked for "suspicious activity" and that i needed to confirm my identity with phone number), then i requested all the data they had on me through the profile options, waited 3 days for them to do the archive then when i logged back in to download it they would only ask for a recaptcha challenge to unlock my account
perhaps they consider bots unable to request gdpr data ?
they let me create an account and then locked it and wanted to know my phone number before they would unlock it. I can't even go delete it without giving them personal information.