It's very hard to maintain an anonymous Twitter account that can withstand government-level attempts to de-anonymize it

[AndreStmaur]

@paxsimius

The phone is to set up the account without providing an IP address or any other information about your computer, which would give you away pretty quick.

I still don’t understand. You need an ip to connect to twitter anyway (or to anything else). I understand you are using TOR. Are you saying that twitter detects TOR and then requires a phone number?