Naven
Glossary
Phone number requirement
A service insisting on a phone number to make an account.
It is used for anti-abuse — numbers cost money and are hard to acquire in bulk — and it is also a permanent, government-linked identifier tied to a physical SIM. For most people that is a fair trade. For somebody fleeing an abusive partner, a journalist, a teenager, or anybody without their own phone, it is a wall.
It also leaks: on several major platforms, knowing somebody's number reveals whether they have an account.
Where Naven stands
Naven never asks for a phone number, at sign-up or afterwards. An email address and a six-digit code are the whole identity check.