4 ms·

You sure? Twitter is notoriously known for asking for users phone number in every account, its practically impossible to have an active account without adding y

You sure? Twitter is notoriously known for asking for users phone number in every account, its practically impossible to have an active account without adding your phone number.

pclmulqdq 4y ago
I don't know about you, but I personally have 5 Twitter accounts and 20+ Reddit accounts (sometimes you want to have different perspectives on an issue, have different front pages, or maybe manufacture a consensus). Only the main Twitter account has been asked for a phone number - I think they actually know about alt accounts and don't mind you having them as long as you don't do anything crazy with them. Don't worry dang, this is my only HN account.
- riffraff 4y ago
  I had a dozen Twitter accounts, but they were made in a different era, nowadays they make it harder to sign up without a phone number tho you can still add bot secondary accounts to the main one.
- cfiggers 4y ago
  "Manufacture a consensus"?
  - seszett 4y ago
    A SFW way to say "manipulate opinion", I guess.
    - stametseater 4y ago
      I think it's a adaptation of "Manufacturing Consent", to sound less rapey. But yes, it's a euphemism for manipulating other people's opinions.
  - pclmulqdq 4y ago
    It's pretty common to use alt accounts to upvote and comment on your own posts - I used to do this when I cared. Some people take it really far and have their alts also repost their content to get multiple shots to "go viral." Some people also make down vote networks to silence comments they don't like. Recently, I have used these accounts to get answers to questions: post the question with one account and ~3 bad but assertive answers with other accounts, and that's usually enough to get at least one response from someone who knows the right answer and wants to prove they are smart. All of this can now be done very easily by ChatGPT, too - it used to take effort. This is the "dark" part of social media marketing that nobody talks about but a lot of people engage in.
    - saagarjha 4y ago
      Why do you do it?
    - tallanvor 4y ago
      It's common among trolls, not among the vast majority of users.
      - red-iron-pine 4y ago
        Not just trolls, there is a giant incentive for marketers (or even just TikTok-ers) looking to make something visible. Tons of accounts reposting content from ~2 months ago to create a long, legitimate-looking post history and high karma score. They then use those accounts to complain about Product X or love Product Y -- and they don't look like a shillbot. Ditto for political actors, propagandists, et al.
      - pclmulqdq 4y ago
        Trolls, professional marketers, reputation management firms, social media "influencers," and even just social media "power users" who don't rise to the level of "influencer" are all known do this. This is a vast minority of users thanks to the Pareto principle and power laws. However, I suspect that the majority of posts you see on the front page of pretty much every social media app have had some degree of "help" from things like this. One Reddit user, Unidan, was famously banned for doing this with 12 accounts, and in retrospect, this sort of scheme may have "made" his success - his replies showed up as the top comment a lot (even when they were not insightful) and it got him significant name recognition.
  - mejutoco 4y ago
    OP is probably confusing it with "Manufacturing consent", a book by Noam Chomsky. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent
    - pclmulqdq 4y ago
      Adapting it. "Manufacturing consent" is a good book on the phenomenon, but sounds kind of odd (given how we use the word "consent" today).
      - mejutoco 4y ago
        The word consent can be used in many contexts, not only sexual. I see nothing odd about it. Consensus is a different meaning. Going by how odd "a consensus" sounds I would simply assume the writer mixed both or misremembered, and I do not read further intent. Just my opinion.
        pclmulqdq 4y ago
        Oh, I was the OP you are responding to. I don't like the words "manufacturing consent" to refer to astroturfing, mostly because of the link to sexual consent, but also because they lack precision (Chomsky's book talks a lot more about propaganda as a tool of "top-down" media rather than "bottom-up" media). A lot of other people who talk about the phenomenon also use "consensus" instead of "consent" when referring to specifically using social media this way. See also: https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300251234/manufacturing-consensus/ https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300251234/manufacturing-...
        mejutoco 4y ago
        Oh. In that case I must admit you know better what you intended to say :P
- munchler 4y ago
  > maybe manufacture a consensus You're running a one-person troll farm? Please reconsider your choices in life.
  - mjr00 4y ago
    Not that I'm defending the practice (and certainly don't have enough skin in the social media game to do it myself), but it is extremely common to have alts upvote/repost each other on social networks, or downvote brigade someone when you're losing an internet argument.
    - AndrewPGameDev 4y ago
      I doubt that even 1% of people using Reddit are using alts to upvote themselves or downvote brigade others. If you have any data to the contrary I'd be happy to hear it.
    - oblio 4y ago
      It's still a solid sign of a sad life. Or a small business, but I wonder how much money there is in that.
      - TeMPOraL 4y ago
        > Or a small business, but I wonder how much money there is in that. They call it "hustling" and "growth hacking", and I suppose there might be good ROI on this when you're just starting up and trying to do some "organic advertising" in a niche community/subreddit. Those couple extra upvotes may be the difference between drowning unnoticed vs. staying on the front page long enough to gather initial interest, and spark a discussion that keeps it up for a day or more. I still believe it's unethical behavior, though.
    - stametseater 4y ago
      For some values of "extremely common", because I'm pretty sure most people don't have the patience and energy to do bullshit like that. But a small fraction of people do it a lot.
- zen_1 4y ago
  With twitter I've found emailing support to verify you're a human has a decent success rate (and without sharing any PII)
norswap 4y ago
Twitter literally lets you log in to multiple accounts from the same session. You can reuse the same emails & phone numbers too. So contrary to what you say, the practice of having "alts" is pretty much encouraged.
- alexiaa 4y ago
  Their help page technically says you can use the same phone number on up to 10 accounts, but that hasn't been the case in 4–5 years or more. It's more like 2–4 accounts per number allowed in my experience, and there is a few week cooldown on reusing a number even if you've already removed it from all accounts. I don't think you can use the same email on multiple accounts at the same time, but using address extensions or creating new emails is easy.

You sure? Twitter is notoriously known for asking for users phone number in every account, its practically impossible to have an active account without adding your phone number.

pclmulqdq 4y ago

I don't know about you, but I personally have 5 Twitter accounts and 20+ Reddit accounts (sometimes you want to have different perspectives on an issue, have different front pages, or maybe manufacture a consensus). Only the main Twitter account has been asked for a phone number - I think they actually know about alt accounts and don't mind you having them as long as you don't do anything crazy with them. Don't worry dang, this is my only HN account.

riffraff 4y ago
I had a dozen Twitter accounts, but they were made in a different era, nowadays they make it harder to sign up without a phone number tho you can still add bot secondary accounts to the main one.
cfiggers 4y ago
"Manufacture a consensus"?
- seszett 4y ago
  A SFW way to say "manipulate opinion", I guess.
  - stametseater 4y ago
    I think it's a adaptation of "Manufacturing Consent", to sound less rapey. But yes, it's a euphemism for manipulating other people's opinions.
- pclmulqdq 4y ago
  It's pretty common to use alt accounts to upvote and comment on your own posts - I used to do this when I cared. Some people take it really far and have their alts also repost their content to get multiple shots to "go viral." Some people also make down vote networks to silence comments they don't like. Recently, I have used these accounts to get answers to questions: post the question with one account and ~3 bad but assertive answers with other accounts, and that's usually enough to get at least one response from someone who knows the right answer and wants to prove they are smart. All of this can now be done very easily by ChatGPT, too - it used to take effort. This is the "dark" part of social media marketing that nobody talks about but a lot of people engage in.
  - saagarjha 4y ago
    Why do you do it?
  - tallanvor 4y ago
    It's common among trolls, not among the vast majority of users.
    - red-iron-pine 4y ago
      Not just trolls, there is a giant incentive for marketers (or even just TikTok-ers) looking to make something visible. Tons of accounts reposting content from ~2 months ago to create a long, legitimate-looking post history and high karma score. They then use those accounts to complain about Product X or love Product Y -- and they don't look like a shillbot. Ditto for political actors, propagandists, et al.
    - pclmulqdq 4y ago
      Trolls, professional marketers, reputation management firms, social media "influencers," and even just social media "power users" who don't rise to the level of "influencer" are all known do this. This is a vast minority of users thanks to the Pareto principle and power laws. However, I suspect that the majority of posts you see on the front page of pretty much every social media app have had some degree of "help" from things like this. One Reddit user, Unidan, was famously banned for doing this with 12 accounts, and in retrospect, this sort of scheme may have "made" his success - his replies showed up as the top comment a lot (even when they were not insightful) and it got him significant name recognition.
- mejutoco 4y ago
  OP is probably confusing it with "Manufacturing consent", a book by Noam Chomsky. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent
  - pclmulqdq 4y ago
    Adapting it. "Manufacturing consent" is a good book on the phenomenon, but sounds kind of odd (given how we use the word "consent" today).
    - mejutoco 4y ago
      The word consent can be used in many contexts, not only sexual. I see nothing odd about it. Consensus is a different meaning. Going by how odd "a consensus" sounds I would simply assume the writer mixed both or misremembered, and I do not read further intent. Just my opinion.
      - pclmulqdq 4y ago
        Oh, I was the OP you are responding to. I don't like the words "manufacturing consent" to refer to astroturfing, mostly because of the link to sexual consent, but also because they lack precision (Chomsky's book talks a lot more about propaganda as a tool of "top-down" media rather than "bottom-up" media). A lot of other people who talk about the phenomenon also use "consensus" instead of "consent" when referring to specifically using social media this way. See also: https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300251234/manufacturing-consensus/ https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300251234/manufacturing-...
        mejutoco 4y ago
        Oh. In that case I must admit you know better what you intended to say :P
munchler 4y ago
> maybe manufacture a consensus You're running a one-person troll farm? Please reconsider your choices in life.
- mjr00 4y ago
  Not that I'm defending the practice (and certainly don't have enough skin in the social media game to do it myself), but it is extremely common to have alts upvote/repost each other on social networks, or downvote brigade someone when you're losing an internet argument.
  - AndrewPGameDev 4y ago
    I doubt that even 1% of people using Reddit are using alts to upvote themselves or downvote brigade others. If you have any data to the contrary I'd be happy to hear it.
  - oblio 4y ago
    It's still a solid sign of a sad life. Or a small business, but I wonder how much money there is in that.
    - TeMPOraL 4y ago
      > Or a small business, but I wonder how much money there is in that. They call it "hustling" and "growth hacking", and I suppose there might be good ROI on this when you're just starting up and trying to do some "organic advertising" in a niche community/subreddit. Those couple extra upvotes may be the difference between drowning unnoticed vs. staying on the front page long enough to gather initial interest, and spark a discussion that keeps it up for a day or more. I still believe it's unethical behavior, though.
  - stametseater 4y ago
    For some values of "extremely common", because I'm pretty sure most people don't have the patience and energy to do bullshit like that. But a small fraction of people do it a lot.
zen_1 4y ago
With twitter I've found emailing support to verify you're a human has a decent success rate (and without sharing any PII)

norswap 4y ago

Twitter literally lets you log in to multiple accounts from the same session. You can reuse the same emails & phone numbers too. So contrary to what you say, the practice of having "alts" is pretty much encouraged.

alexiaa 4y ago
Their help page technically says you can use the same phone number on up to 10 accounts, but that hasn't been the case in 4–5 years or more. It's more like 2–4 accounts per number allowed in my experience, and there is a few week cooldown on reusing a number even if you've already removed it from all accounts. I don't think you can use the same email on multiple accounts at the same time, but using address extensions or creating new emails is easy.