Crypto giants criticize Twitter on scam, bot accounts impersonating them

Stakeholders in the crypto community are complaining about the prevalence of scam bots accounts on Twitter, urging the social media site to find a solution to the menace.

Ripple’s (XRP) CEO Brad Garlinghouse shared a mail where the social media platform refused to block an account impersonating him, saying the account was “not in violation of Twitter’s misleading and deceptive identities policy.”

I can’t believe I’m still doing this – @TwitterSupport, it’s embarrassing when you can’t distinguish a real profile from a fake one. Verified scam accounts are now replying to tons of crypto tweets with my image, @VitalikButerin’s or @CZ_Binance’s. (watch it happen to this tweet) pic.twitter.com/wx9LzR75YR

— Brad Garlinghouse (@bgarlinghouse) October 3, 2022

According to Garlinghouse, the social media site’s inability to stop the menace has allowed scammers to take advantage of thousands of unsuspecting individuals.

Before Ripple’s CEO complaints, stakeholders like Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, Ethereum (ETH) cofounder VItalik Buterin and Cardano’s (ADA) founder Charles Hoskinson have raised issues about the prevalence of these bot accounts impersonating them.

Scammers buy Twitter accounts

CZ revealed that scammers now buy accounts he follows.

pic.twitter.com/EHN3bGmEDQ

— CZ 🔶 Binance (@cz_binance) September 28, 2022

The Binance CEO shared a screenshot where someone claimed they were offered $100,000 to shill a project under his tweet, with two other users sharing screenshots of scammers offering to buy their account for $10,000 and $5,000 because CZ follows them.

CZ’s account is private, meaning only those he follows or mentions can comment under his tweets.

Hoskinson also alerted his followers to a fake verified account with his name, urging them to help report it.

Fake verified hoskinson. Please report https://t.co/sRWKdSsQpt

— Charles Hoskinson (@IOHK_Charles) September 22, 2022

Meanwhile, Buterin has described the bot menace as a “complete failure of blue checkmarks in their current form.” According to him, Twitter should be turned into an open API where third parties are involved in helping to solve the problems.

So many scam accounts have blue checkmarks these days.

Seems like a complete failure of blue checkmarks in their current form. I’m definitely seeing the wisdom of turning twitter into an open API and letting third parties try to make the best UIs to solve these problems. pic.twitter.com/CIwAdpRAkv

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) October 1, 2022

Crypto scams on Twitter

Before the proliferation of bots on Twitter, the social media site had been used by malicious players to carry out several scam acts.

The accounts of notable names in the space, like Beeple, alongside non-players in the industry like the British Army, have previously been hacked to promote crypto scams.

Twitter, Musk, and bots

Elon Musk had raised Twitter’s bot issues while he was trying to acquire the firm. According to the Tesla CEO,  his investigations into the social media company showed that bot accounts on the platform were more than the official figure released by the firm.

However, Twitter’s CEO Parag Agrawal has maintained that bots account for less than 5% of the platform’s users. The social network and Musk are currently embroiled in a legal tussle over the $44 billion acquisition deal.