Of late, Twitter has been a hotspot for cryptocurrency scams, with con artists hijacking verified Twitter accounts or impersonating prominent figures in order to relieve unsuspecting users of their digital assets. Late last month we reported of a cryptocurrency scam where scammers were using Twitter handles with names close enough to Elon Musk and posting cryptocurrency related tweets.
We are on it.
— jack⚡️ (@jack) March 6, 2018
Now according to a recent tweet from Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey, the company is working to prevent cryptocurrency scams on the platform. Dorsey made the revelation while replying to a tweet from Emin Gün Sirer, a professor at Cornell University, who had linked another such cryptocurrency scam in his tweet. In his reply, Dorsey said, “We are on it.” and revealed no further information about the company’s efforts.
Good news, guys! @krakensupport is back! Strange that our initial appeal was also apparently handled by an automated system. Thank you all for your public outrage. Stay vigilant. pic.twitter.com/9l2LRfDmHS
— Kraken Exchange (@krakenfx) March 6, 2018
The news comes after a series of bans imposed on a number of genuine accounts who were trying to warn others about the copycat accounts. A report from CoinDesk reveals that the official support account for the cryptocurrency exchange Kraken had also been banned. However, the ban was lifted soon after as the community started targeting Dorsey’s account for the unwarranted bans.
.@TwitterSupport It's been a couple days, and apparently I'm still shadow banned. I have no idea why.
Thinking of giving up on Twitter, and that would be really sad. Crypto twitter is my community 😞 pic.twitter.com/7htc4pAgUq
— ₿rooke ⚡️ (@bitcoinmom) March 5, 2018
Other cryptocurrency influencers, such as Brooke Maller (@bitcoinmom), were not so lucky as her account has been shadow banned. For the uninitiated, a shadow ban is a method by which an account becomes unviewable to others, with the user unaware of the ban. Maller told CoinDesk that:
“People just started DMing me that they couldn’t see my tweets in threads. It would say ‘tweet unavailable.’ Others said they aren’t getting notifications when I tweet. But no word from Twitter. There is some really weird shit going on for crypto Twitter people right now. A rash of permanent bans and suspension.”
Even though Dorsey has kind of assured that the company is aware of the issue and is working on a fix, a number of users have criticized the platform for its faulty anti-spam efforts. Until Twitter releases a reliable and permanent fix, we’d suggest users to stay alert and steer clear of any tweets highlighting ‘attractive’ investments in crytocurrency.
