Why are social media profiles mandatory for new members?

[Ozy_Flame]

My friend wanted to sign up for CP today and was completely taken aback by the fact that you cannot create a new membership without adding your Facebook and/or Twitter accounts for "identity verification".

Is this normal? Why has this happened? And can memberships be created without social media sites? What if someone doesn't use social media but wants to contribute to CP?

[MrMastodonFarm]

I'd imagine it's steps taken to curb the continued nuisance of returning posters. A legitimate person is less likely to care about the linkage, someone who's only signing up to get banned might be stopped. Obviously there is ways around this. We've seen moon get banned again (waner), so it's not below some to fake social media accounts and buy burner phones to sign in again.

It might turn back some legit posters like your friend but most people nowadays have aleast one of Facebook or twitter etc, so it shouldn't turn away many.

[REDVAN]

If you buy a burner phone and make a fake facebook, you must really have an axe to grind with CP

[photon]

Social media accounts aren't required, what's required is demonstrating identity.

Social media is just one way of providing information that can be used to verify someone's identity. If someone doesn't use social media they can use other methods like providing a mobile number that we can verify via SMS, or providing and emailing from a work email address, or any other method they can think of.

If they thought that was required, I should maybe tweak the wording so it is more clear.

More info:
http://forum.calgarypuck.com/showthread.php?t=140522

If someone registers and their Facebook account is brand new then that won't do much to establish identity, so we won't use it to approve an account.

Not sure how to protect against burner phones.. maybe re-verify a mobile number six months after registration?

EDIT: I tweaked the wording on the field to hopefully make it clear that social media is just one option, that identity verification is the goal of the information provided.

[Jbo]

I love this. One of the major gaming sites I frequent requires a work e-mail to sign up as well. (won't accept gmail/hotmail etc)

One of the other rules I always liked was the inability to start a new thread until moving to a "member". Pros and cons to this, but I like there to be a bit of a period for someone to integrate into the community.