Twitter misses ad revenue and user growth estimates

Re:Twitter misses ad revenue and user growth estimates by Terry_Roll on Thursday February 10, 2022 @09:07PM (#30295920)

Because even a phone number is not enough to keep out bots.

Some VoIP providers do a PAYG model, so you can choose from any number of phone numbers, regional, local landlines or from mobile numbers for free and only pay when you make a call or answer their answerphone.

Now obviously Twitter will send text messages so you never incur a cost from the VoIP provider.

So how does a phone number solve bot activity?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Twitter misses ad revenue and user growth estimates by koolba on Thursday February 10, 2022 @09:40PM (#30296185)

Don’t you have to seed the PAYG account with a non-zero amount of money to initially get the number? Even a few dollars multiplied out becomes a significant spend if it’s a unique number per bot.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Twitter misses ad revenue and user growth estimates by Terry_Roll on Thursday February 10, 2022 @09:51PM (#30296276)

Totally free and that's just one VoIP provider. https://www.sipgatebasic.co.uk/

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Twitter misses ad revenue and user growth estimates by shmatt on Friday February 11, 2022 @08:57AM (#30301523)

its a cat and mouse game. lately I've found many websites show an error when I put in my Google Voice number for sms verification

I don't know how the implementation works, if theres a way to check for virtual vs. real number, but some sms verification service provider seems to have successfully implemented a filter on Google Voice

[ Parent | on HN ]