2020-12-14 23:38:27 +00:00
|
|
|
---
|
|
|
|
title: Plea to Twitter
|
|
|
|
date: 2020-12-14
|
|
|
|
---
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
**NOTE**: This is a very different kind of post compared to what I usually
|
|
|
|
write. If you or anyone you know works at Twitter, please link this to them. I
|
|
|
|
am in a unique situation and the normal account recovery means do not work. If
|
2020-12-15 00:53:34 +00:00
|
|
|
you work at Twitter and are reading this, my case number is [redacted].
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
**EDIT**(19:51 M12 14 2020): My account is back. Thank you anonymous Twitter
|
|
|
|
support people. For everyone else, please take this as an example of how
|
|
|
|
**NOT** to handle account issues. The fact that I had to complain loudly on
|
|
|
|
Twitter to get this weird edge case taken care of is ludicrous. I'd gladly pay
|
|
|
|
Twitter just to have a support mechanism that gets me an actual human without
|
|
|
|
having to complain on Twitter.
|
2020-12-14 23:38:27 +00:00
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
On Sunday, December 13, 2020, I noticed that I was locked out of my Twitter
|
|
|
|
account. If you go to [@theprincessxena](https://twitter.com/theprincessxena)
|
|
|
|
today, you will see that the account is locked out for "unusual activity". I
|
|
|
|
don't know what I did to cause this to happen (though I have a few theories) and
|
|
|
|
I hope to explain them in the headings below. I have gotten no emails or contact
|
|
|
|
from Twitter about this yet. I have a backup account at
|
|
|
|
[@CadeyRatio](https://twitter.com/CadeyRatio) as a stopgap. I am also on
|
|
|
|
mastodon as [@cadey@mst3k.interlinked.me](https://mst3k.interlinked.me/@cadey).
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
In place of my tweeting about quarantine life, I am writing about my experiences
|
|
|
|
[here](http://cetacean.club/journal/).
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
## Why I Can't Unlock My Account
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I can't unlock my account the normal way because I forgot to set up two factor
|
|
|
|
authentication and I also forgot to change the phone number registered with the
|
|
|
|
account to my Canadian one when I [moved to
|
|
|
|
Canada](/blog/life-update-2019-05-16). I remembered to do this change for all of
|
|
|
|
the other accounts I use regularly except for my Twitter account.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
In order to stop having to pay T-Mobile $70 per month, I transferred my phone
|
|
|
|
number to [Twilio](https://www.twilio.com/). This combined with some clever code
|
|
|
|
allowed me to gracefully migrate to my new Canadian number. Unfortunately,
|
|
|
|
Twitter flat-out refuses to send authentication codes to Twilio numbers. It's
|
|
|
|
probably to prevent spam, but it would be nice if there was an option to get the
|
|
|
|
authentication code over a phone call.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
## Theory 1: International Travel
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Recently I needed to travel internationally in order to start my new job at
|
|
|
|
[Tailscale](https://tailscale.com/). Due to an unfortunate series of events over
|
|
|
|
two months, I needed to actually travel internationally to get a new visa. This
|
|
|
|
lead me to take a very boring trip to Minnesota for a week.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
During that trip, I tweeted and fleeted about my travels. I took pictures and
|
|
|
|
was in my hotel room a lot.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
[We can't dig up the link for obvious reasons, but one person said they were
|
|
|
|
always able to tell when we are traveling because it turns the twitter account
|
|
|
|
into a fast food blog.](conversation://Mara/hacker)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I think Twitter may have locked out my account because I was suddenly in
|
|
|
|
Minnesota after being in Canada for almost a year.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
## Theory 2: Misbehaving API Client
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I use [mi](https://github.com/Xe/mi) as part of my new blogpost announcement
|
|
|
|
pipeline. One of the things mi does is submits new blogposts and some metadata
|
|
|
|
about them to Twitter. I haven't been able to find any logs to confirm this, but
|
|
|
|
if something messed up in a place that was unlogged somehow, it could have
|
|
|
|
triggered some kind of anti-abuse pipeline.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
## Theory 3: NixOS Screenshot Set Off Some Bad Thing
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
One of my recent tweets that I can't find anymore is a tweet about a NixOS
|
|
|
|
screenshot for my work machine. I think that some part of the algorithm
|
|
|
|
somewhere really hated it, and thus triggered the account lock. I don't really
|
|
|
|
understand how a screenshot of KDE 5 showing neofetch output could make my
|
|
|
|
account get locked, but with enough distributed machine learning anything can
|
|
|
|
happen.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
## Theory 4: My Password Got Cracked
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I used a random password generated with iCloud for my Twitter password.
|
|
|
|
Theoretically this could have been broken, but I doubt it.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
---
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Overall, I just want to be able to tweet again. Please spread this around for
|
|
|
|
reach. I don't like using my blog to reach out like this, but I've been unable
|
|
|
|
to find anyone that knows someone at Twitter so far and I feel this is the best
|
|
|
|
way to broadcast it. I'll update this post with the resolution to this problem
|
|
|
|
when I get one.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I think the International Travel theory is the most likely scenario. I just want
|
|
|
|
a human to see this situation and help fix it.
|