[58x14]

I remember awhile ago, maybe 5-8 years back (wow, time) I went to log into Twitter, and was confronted with a dark pattern: enter my phone number to access my account. No other option.

I only used my Twitter account on occasion, and after that, I swore I wouldn’t.

Years later, I decided to log in again, mainly for digital hygiene. No prompt for phone number. Fantastic! I logged in. But then, I realized that there was no email 2FA, nor authenticator app option. Only SMS.

I gave them my number and have logged in a handful of times since.

The Twitter chronicles continue to amuse and annoy me. I’d bet this is the latest in a series of moves to lock down internal KPIs across their funnel, especially following the shutdown of public API.

Edit: this is probably a lot simpler. The rate per SMS has been increasing quite a lot YoY. This is probably just a line item getting trimmed as they, uh, “trim the fat.”

I miss old Elon.