Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has vowed that the social media giant will crack down on the growing number of fraudulent cryptocurrency accounts that have begun to proliferate on "Crypto Twitter."
In recent months, an increasing number of industry figures with large Twitter followings have had their profiles copied and used to scam unsuspecting followers into sending cryptocurrency to the scammers' wallets.
In the typical example below, a scammer creates an account that imitates that of Litecoin creator Charlie Lee. The fake account, whose Twitter handle is a different character than Lee's real one, responds to Lee's post, claiming that he is running a giveaway, but users must send him a small LTC balance to contribute. Several other fake accounts then respond to this post, claiming that they received the free LTC, making it appear that the plan is legitimate.
To make matters worse, a variety of Twitter users harassed by these robotic doppelgangers have had difficulty verifying their accounts, which would at least give their followers another way to distinguish between real accounts and fake ones.
Twitter, however, says it's on the case.
"We're on it," Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey wrote after Cornell professor Emin Gรผn Sirer tweeted that โ[t]โThese scams are getting out of hand.โ
However, the company's crusade against cryptocurrency scams has already inadvertently ensnared several legitimate accounts in its network. Kraken, the ninth-largest cryptocurrency exchange by daily trading volume, briefly saw its customer support account banned as part of the anti-spam purge.
Others, including Coin Center communications director Neeraj Agrawal, reported that their accounts had been "forbidden in the shadowโby the platform's anti-spam algorithm, although it appears that these incidents have subsequently been corrected.
Additionally, suspended accounts are quickly replaced with new ones, creating a cat-and-mouse game for Twitter moderators.
Scammers have also begun to adapt their methods to evade detection. As was the case with the Charlie Lee impersonator mentioned above, many of the fake accounts have started using shortened URLs to hide the fact that they are linking to wallet addresses, indicating that Twitter is watching these types of posts closely. .
Featured image from Shutterstock.
The charge Twitter CEO Vows to Crack Down on Cryptocurrency Scams appeared first on CCN.
