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Welp, it finally happened

Believe it or not, I’ve never copped a Twitter ban before. I’ve gotten into a few heated arguments, but I’m not a very aggressive Twitterer in general. In fact, my favorite tactic when the namecalling starts is to remain blandly polite. It drives ’em nuts.

What’s that? The tweet? It was in a thread about Lia Thompson. I don’t mind deleting it; it’s really badly worded. Shame on me.

As hate goes, it’s weak sauce.

So now, to get my account back, I have to give Twitter my cellphone number for a confirmation code. That is so not going to happen.

Comes the exploration of the free online sms services. They give you a fake cell number, you plug it in, you read the number that pops up. I’ve tried dozens of them. Either Twitter tells me the number has been used before, or I plug it in and the verification code never comes through.

I watch other people’s verification codes come through (it’s a shared number) for things like PayPal and DoorDash. I think it just doesn’t work for Twitter. But, strangely, Twitter lets you try about 20 fake phone numbers before telling you to come back tomorrow. I mean, surely the average punter doesn’t have access to 20 phones, so they must know what you’re doing.

Currently, I’m struggling with an app called Phoner that basically gives you a second phone number attached to your phone. It will forward calls and texts to your regular phone, if you like, but you don’t have to give out your real phone. And you can biff it and get a new one from time to time, if you so desire.

But I think I may have to feed it a few coins before it will let me play. I got it at the app store. It looks legit.

Comments


Comment from ExpressoBold
Time: March 8, 2022, 8:34 pm

January 8, 2021.

I was bounced from the land of the little blue bird for “spam and platform manipulation.” I never applied for restitution because by that time I had determined that twitter was a “hive of scum and villainy.”

I’m pretty sure I was addicted to the caca that twitter was. Lucky I got out when I did.


Comment from dissent555
Time: March 8, 2022, 9:18 pm

Locked outa Twitter huh?

Some folks have all the luck.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: March 8, 2022, 9:32 pm

I’m clearly addicted. I gots the shakes.

Thing is, I’d finally trimmed my account to a place where I liked nearly all the tweets I saw. I realize that’s dangerous confirmation bias, and I actively pushed back against that sort of thing at the beginning, but I am at a place where a bubble is just what’s wanted.

And no. Twitter wouldn’t send the code to Phoner 🙁


Comment from OldFert
Time: March 8, 2022, 10:26 pm

How about a burner?


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: March 8, 2022, 10:45 pm

I thought this was a burner. Somehow, I think they may have got hold of my real number and are holding out for it.

I’ve learned some things. Belgium requires ID to register a phone number. UK requires a physical address. And Gmail will kick up a fuss if you haven’t used an address in a long time and try to sign up from a different computer. How do they know?


Comment from Some Vegetable
Time: March 8, 2022, 10:59 pm

Rent a cellphone for $8 a day, 3 day minimum. I doubt if any number you might get will have been used to verify a Twitter Account before.

https://www.cellularabroad.com/phone-rentals-uk

I am kind of ashamed of myself for facilitation of an addiction… who the Hell needs Twitter?


Comment from Mitch
Time: March 9, 2022, 12:24 am

Twitter – one of the worst forms of Internet. Future historians sifting through the rubble of our collapsed civilization will conclude that the mental illness that spread virulently through the internet to most of humanity likely originated in Twitter.


Comment from Uncle Al
Time: March 9, 2022, 1:54 am

Isn’t Twitter sort of like a fancy Usenet? kekeke <vbg>


Comment from lauraw
Time: March 9, 2022, 2:39 am

I am alarmed that you are going to such lengths to rejoin the shouty collective. That’s a bad sign.

Leave it alone for a few days. You will feel better without it. The symptom of discomfort you’re experiencing right now is withdrawal from an unhealthy substance. That app literally tricks your brain to keep using it. Stop letting the borg manipulate your brain chemistry. Breathe the free air. That shit ain’t real.


Comment from BJM
Time: March 9, 2022, 4:27 am

I was locked out for an innocuous comment. They can fuck right off. I don’t miss it a’tall.

I’ve lost interest except for a handful of blogs, a few YT-ers (JesusEnriqueRosas makes me laugh), special interest vloggers, and subreddits.

I usually check out the goings-on at Stoat Cottage and the puppy blender then calls it a day.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: March 9, 2022, 10:50 am

I didn’t used to be a Twitter addict, but it became my main source of news during the ‘pandemic’ – some of which was even true and not available elsewhere.


Comment from Deborah HH
Time: March 9, 2022, 11:24 am

I understand searching for reliable news.


Comment from Some Vegetable
Time: March 9, 2022, 12:18 pm

That’s like saying that there’s a drought and gin is a source of fruit and water and contains nutrients not available elsewhere.

Some of which is even true


Comment from Durnedyankee
Time: March 9, 2022, 12:18 pm

I cut myself out of Reddit three weeks ago after only 3 months of reading there. I was there for the 1883 series info.

The collective is seriously deranged based on some of the things I’d see posted.

Given that the regular daily headlines are obviously written by the lunatics, for the lunatics, about the lunatics, I didn’t need to mainline it by keeping my Reddit account.

We’ve taken up “I don’t care anymore” as a mantra.

I’m convinced a certain party plans on cheating it’s way to maintain power. It’s the only logical answer to their stomping on the gas rather than doing a Clintonesque re-triangulation when the price of everything is tripling, the polls show we don’t like it, and their answer is to tell us to stop whinging, go green, and they’ll fix things by doing business with Iran and Venezuela.


Comment from BJM
Time: March 9, 2022, 10:35 pm

@Durned…yeah the subs can get looney, but all the news is nuts…on every forum. I’m even growing weary of Ace..although his cobs are a must-read at the weekend.

The modern world has, so to speak, a multitude of messengers and no message. – G.K. Chesterton.

Gosh I miss Mme Scherzo (Jewel), we’re losing the best of the idiom.

BTW-Gerard has it going on this week.

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