Twitter users in the USA know that if they want to follow someone via cell phone, they need to text to 40404 the words “follow WhatEverName” and within minutes they are signed up to the account they want to follow.
If a person lives in Egypt and wants to follow someone via the above method, the person sends a text to 4040 (without the last 4). There are codes for people living in Honduras (40404), Iraq (71117), and Kenya too (89888) of all places, but not for Israel. Furthermore, a reader here notes that Twitter offers two separate codes for the “Palestinian Territories”: 40404 for Wataniya customers and 37373 for Jawwal customers.
Does this mean Israelis can’t follow others on Twitter? Not exactly: Many people follow others by setting up their account online and then receive the messages via app on their hand-held. However, many people do not have internet access at all times, and their only way to receive Tweets at all or tweets from new people they want to follow, is by signing up via the so-called Short-Code which is any of the above-type codes that they will send via a regular text. But again, looking through the Twitter listing, I did not see a code for Israel.
