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this post was submitted on 25 Mar 2026
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Privacy
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I think the first time someone had the idea of doing this to verify if you are not a bot is on YouTube 4-5 years ago (I'm not sure)
At least YouTube allows you to verify without giving any sort of data
If you upload on youtube then you need a google account. Which requires a phone number on a real smartphone.
I certainly don't have my phone number associated with my Google account. Maybe grandfathered in, though?
Yeah earlier google accounts were much less restrictive
Since when?
Not sure but you can try to make an account if you want but it asks you for a phone number and it pops up a button to send some system request to the phone so it's not even a regular sms message it like sends it through some kind of system api
That sounds like a 2 step auth for logins they've been doing for a while. I might have made a new burner email last year and it asked for absolutely no real information.
Oh