@dansup As long as it allows use of a Google Voice or other VoIP number

@dansup Cautious enough that I already use a phone masking service for anytime someone asks me for my number

@dansup i'd be positive to it, but not it if it is a umbrella provider like pixelfed. As there are several websites with the same brand identity but has entirely different trust as to ho is behind it. If it was one provider with a clear unique identity like a hotmail.com or Gmail.com Who I can trust (as a normie) it would be different

@dansup I couldnt join an Instance that needed a mobile phone to register I dont have a mobile phone ,theres no signal in the house or garden I have to walk to a mound on the road to get a signalHuge swathes of the area have no signal .Same for many other houses in rural areas of the UK ,only 1 out of 4 of my previous homes in the north of Scotland had a signal ,neither of my homes in Yorkshire did,its less uncommon than people think

@dansup Are you intending to block all the (many) anonymous services that offer an SMS number that simply display all incoming messages on a public web page, precisely to get around having to give out your real mobile number to potentially untrustworthy web services?
If you’re not storing the number, what prevents a spammer using just one number to set up 10,000 accounts?

@dansup this only fights spam accounts on large centralized instances.

And we don't want large, centralized instances.

We want to encourage many, small, federated instances. So IMO any effort to improve spam fighting, should go to tools and tech for fighting spam in a world with many, small, federated instances.

@dansup it would depend a lot on how much I trust the instance owner. It’s a standard approach for mitigating bots and reasonably effective - but must every social media company that’s done this has abused the data eventually. Verification by a trusted third party might be an easier sell.

@dansup “Knowing”? No could know that. How about “Hoping”, “Believing”, or “Thinking”