This article is about how Twitter are trying to end online abuse by making their users provide their mobile phone numbers so that they can track abusers and trolls.
- Twitter has also begun requiring all users of the anonymity network Tor to register their phone number to access the service, regardless of whether or not they are involved in abuse.
- Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group, has voiced concerns over the move. He said: “Requiring all Tor users to submit a mobile phone number to sign up for a Twitter account could risk exposing people who have a legitimate need to keep their identity hidden – for example human rights activists, dissidents and victims of abuse. Tor was one of the ways that activists in Turkey could access social media when the government closed down networks in 2014.”
- The clampdown may stop causal abusers, but those that have gone to the trouble of using Tor to set up accounts and protect their identity to troll and abuse users are unlikely to be deterred by a phone number requirement
- In nations such as the UK and the US, working phone numbers are easy to obtain without giving mobile phone networks personal details. Such “burner phones” are often pre-paid phone plans bought with cash without the requirement for identification and therefore cannot be tracked to an individual.
- But in other countries, such workarounds may be less available. In Turkey, all mobile phones have to be registered, including those bought outside of the country. A passport is required to obtain a sim card and phone number, which makes any phone number that could be subpoenaed from Twitter by the government a risk of exposing identity.
- “Twitter does not block or force Tor users to phone verify in order to sign up. Occasionally, signups and logins may be asked to phone verify as they may exhibit behavior similar to spam. This is applicable to all IPs and not just Tor IPs,” said a Twitter spokesperson.
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