I've changed my mind; require a phone number. Sick of the spam.

Adding on to this - phone verification *can* be powerful, but it is not the end-all-be-all of security. MaximilienV is a longstanding valued member of the community I mod in with an incredible supportive history in Twitch Music. Blocking his account from commenting unless he attaches a phone number protects exactly no one. In fact I'd say it harms the Twitch Music community.

And, the fact that there seems to be exactly ZERO ways to appeal the decision is infuriating.

I have been supporting streamers by cheering bits, gifting subs and subscribing to several of them, since the creation of my twitch account. I even have my Amazon Prime linked to it.
And suddenly, on May 27th 2022, I can't chat anymore on any channel across twitch without a verified phone number.

After trying to contact twitch support several times, i only get the same automated response saying that, for chat safety reason, i have to register a phone number in order to be allowed to chat.

How can an account with my history of support can suddenly become a threat to chat safety?

The phone number verification was supposed to be an option for the streamers to prevent spambots in chat, not a mandatory step for the legitimate viewer who simply wants to participate in chat.

Do Better Twitch!

Very agree! I just come from a centralized and autocratic country, suffering from censorship anywhere,only could access twitch by technique, you will not want to this **** goverment to know you received a SMS from a foreign democratic country.

Since a few day ago I am now forced to verfiy my account with a mobile phone number. I can not chat in ANY stream, even if the forced authentication mode on the streamers side is turned off.

I don't know why they chose to do this to my account but this is absolutly intolerable, baseless and arbitrary. How can Twitch persume to be capable of protecting my personal data, if they can't even protect their core business data and even source code from cyber attacks. I will complain at Amazon directly if this is not resolved immediately.

I am reluctant to give out my mobile number again. I've spent the last couple of years hounded by spambots because it leaked off a supposedly safe site, both in email form and phone calls.
I will not give out my number online again, period.
Let us verify our accounts another way.

I don't want to give my phone number to Twitch. Moreover, I'm subscribed, are my credit card details not enough already ?

Please stop forcing people to give their personal details at every turn ...

I think one aspect of requiring a mobile phone number in order to verify that isn't being highlighted is that, while the intent may be security, it's essentially a form of financial gatekeeping. If viewers are forced into purchasing a mobile plan, they will have less of a disposable monthly income to support their favorite Streamers as a result. Inevitably, this policy will lead to lowered viewership across the platform and lower sub counts.

Absolutely! Not everyone has a mobile, and not everyone that does want to link it. Account age would me much better imo.

Also, no one told me that I can only use my phone number once. I used it on an old Twitch account then disabled that account. Now, I can't access the said account and I can't use my phone number.. Been asking for help, but only bots are responding to me..

Here's an Idea. Stop forcing Mobile Phone Verification. Not everyone has a mobile phone. Not everyone wants to have a mobile phone. To force account verification through mobile phones is discriminatory. It is also a form of predatory marketing. (Cornering people get cell phone plans because you get a share of the money from verification.) There are many ways to verify accounts such as the Authy App. I am not going to go spend a few hundred dollars on a phone and a contract just so I can prove to you people that I am indeed the person using the account. Stop being greedy. Get better at managing your site.

SMS is a very poor method of second factor authentication on top of the privacy concern.

Right now, it is basically impossible to verify your accounts in these 'restricted' chats without getting a phone number. Sure, it prevents trolls from messing with the chat, but it also locks millions of other users out of the experience. If they don't have a phone number to verify with, how are they supposed to verify their account? What if they aren't allowed to use their family's phone number? What if there phone number does not work with verification? You see? There are a lot of problems that come from having this forced phone verification in certain chats. Some users are unable to verify, so they will not be able to engage with the streamers, which is the WHOLE POINT of having a chat on a streaming platform. I say that you make it easier for people to verify their accounts by either allowing use of VoIP or landlines, or providing some sort of support to the people who are unable to verify their accounts, because there are a lot of people (including me) that know how annoying this crap is, and this would save them tons of hassle and allow them to start engaging with the streamer. If they do start to break the rules, THEN you should force no VoIP or landline to keep the troll from coming back. I feel this would be a much better implementation and would save viewers tons of hassle if they find these types of chats.

Considering that their data just leaked, yeah, trusting them with my phone number does not feel very apt.