Its a bit weird complaining about a platform asking for your phone number when in the past tweeter worked only via sms.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter#Format
Lucky those that created their accounts early on.
Forcing us to put more data then what is needed should be banned from any social platform.
I really don't get any of this eager race to collect all personal data possible.
Google is already on to us with Chrome and Android. If people were really afraid of this they wouldn't even buy phones, do phone calls (from land line) or even send a personal registered mail (it could be violated). Hell, trust no one with your secrets. Don't even write it in a diary, someone may reconstruct it even after you burn it to ashes (I see a lot of CSI).
Still good to be updated on this.