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Bluesky didn't require phone numbers back when it was invite only, and then there was a period of time after they allowed everyone to create accounts where users need a phone number to verify. That requirement might have been replaced by a captcha according to:

https://github.com/bluesky-social/social-app/issues/2762

But I didn't try to create an account recently, maybe they went back to requiring phone numbers.

by deltoidmaximus9 hours ago|

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Lots of services demand your phone number after the fact now, hoping to use the sunk cost fallacy to extort it out of you when you're in a hurry.

Walmart recently deleted my phone number from my account for vague reasons but most likely because another account had the same number. That other account is my wife and the number is our VoIP line. I have no desire to interact with walmart through my cell phone so I didn't give it to them. So I used a google voice number, which is not my number, to get back in. Then they just bought my actual cell number from my credit card company and autopopulated the field. Jokes on me!

by aucisson_masque6 hours ago|

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> Then they just bought my actual cell number from my credit card company

Holy moly, don't you have any law at all to protect people's privacy ?

by fcarraldo5 hours ago|

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in the US? no.

by cassepipe8 hours ago|

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But I don't think that's the case for Bluesky

by hparadiz4 hours ago|

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It's because of spam. You're damned if you do and damned if you don't.

Ironically AI could fix this when trivial spam detection inference becomes cheap enough to throw away on every upload.

by alyeska29 hours ago|

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It's been years since I tried making a Twitter account, I believe at the time it sometimes required a phone number to sign up but other times it was optional (some A/B test).

I think Bluesky didn't require a phone number to sign up, just an email. Maybe I'm misremembering though and it forced a phone number so I had to provide a fake one or a voip one.