I posted this elsewhere on the forum because I got here by following a link from someone sharing their own experience with the same problem, but I figure that this is a great place to post about this problem too.

Why, after ten years of chatting on Twitch with a verified email address, is Twitch blocking me from every single Twitch chat unless I give my phone number? I've been on great behavior for my entire time on Twitch, so why did Twitch impose this on my account a few months ago? Twitch has not given any reason, and I don't want to provide both my email address and phone number to Twitch.

I've contacted the owners of certain channels who I know on other websites and they've confirmed that they didn't turn on the phone verification setting, so this is something Twitch is doing. I've investigated the matter on search engines as well, and I've found that several other Twitch users are facing the same puzzling restriction.

Please explain why my rules-abiding account was suddenly hit with this phone restriction after ten years. I've done nothing to make Twitch unsafe or unfun, and I've even been apologized TO by users in chat rooms. Please lift this restriction so I and other well-behaved people can chat with only a verified email address. This phone requirement was not placed due to a behavior strike, nor is a phone number required for every Twitch user to chat on the website.

Also, if this is a glitch instead of a design choice, it's a very bad glitch for your site to have! Additionally, if an unrelated detail will get a human to read this post, a few months prior to the phone number requirement restriction/glitch I tried to gift a channel five subscriptions, but Twitch wouldn't accept the payment and gave no explanation as to why. The credit card was just fine and still is, and no one was blocked from giving or receiving a subscription.