Twitter Taking Action to Halt Crypto Scams

_{Twitter joins Facebook and other social media companies in attempting to curb the spread of cryptocurrency scams via its platform.}

Following the perpetration of various cryptocurrency-related scams on its platform, social media website Twitter is taking steps to halt and prevent the spread of misleading and potentially harmful misinformation.

As per a report by Bloomberg, a Twitter spokesman admitted that the company was aware of crypto-related “manipulation”, and confirmed that steps were being taken to “prevent these types of accounts from engaging with others in a deceptive manner.”

The cryptocurrency boom has led to multiple scams popping up on social media, and Twitter scams have been particularly rampant of late, with fraudsters taking advantage of multiple loopholes. At first, spammers would create accounts similar to original ones belonging to popular crypto personalities, such as Charlie Lee, Vitalik Buterin and John McAfee.

Scammers would then leave comments on high engagement Tweets by these celebrities, claiming to be running either a giveaway or a contest, in which people who send a certain amount of LTC, BTC or ETH to their address would receive double that amount, and so on.
Since the fake Tweets would be liked and retweeted by other fake accounts, they would start showing up at the top, directly under the original Tweets, resulting in many unsuspecting users falling victim to these scams.

Another tactic scammers have been using is hacking or buying Twitter verified accounts, and then changing their display pictures and names to match existing high-profile accounts, after which they proceed to lure the community into sending them crypto as part of a giveaway or contest.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey also commented on the matter recently; in response to a Tweet about crypto scams, Dorsey said: “We are on it.”

The risks of fraud and scams associated with cryptocurrencies have led social media websites such as Facebook and Instagram to ban crypto and initial coin offering related ads on their platforms. However, at present, these bans are far from airtight.

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