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posted by chromas on Wednesday March 27 2019, @08:48PM   Printer-friendly
from the was-anything-of-value-lost dept.

Twitter Birth-Year Hoax Locks Users Out of Accounts:

Twitter has warned users to ignore a hoax suggesting an alternative colour scheme will appear in the app if they change their birth year to 2007.

Instead, users who fall for the scam will be locked out of their accounts because Twitter prohibits anyone under the age of 13 from using the site.

[...]Twitter has automatically prevented users under 13 from using the social network since May last year and its terms of use state that the social network is "not directed to children."

Within the EU, companies aren't allowed to create contracts of service with users under 13 without parental permission, according to the recently adopted General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Twitter said that anyone locked out of their account erroneously could follow instructions in an email they should have received from Twitter or fill out an online form.

SocialEngineering++


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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 28 2019, @04:35AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 28 2019, @04:35AM (#821172)

    Indeed, that's where I also thought this was going.

    My answer to required secret questions like, What is your mothers maiden name, What is the name of your first pet, etc etc is something like kjgu6f&URF6iI7V/DF67565VU%ERV7¤¤#0.,/&RyrJYTDChjKHbgku6bvu5eCV(%EV&E098%##. And no, I never expect to input that so I don't save it. If I lose the primary credentials, I just lose access. Never happened so far.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 28 2019, @08:21AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 28 2019, @08:21AM (#821228)

    my bank asks for those answers whenever I use a new machine to access the website, and sometimes just as a periodic security thing.