The tech billionaire behind Tesla and SpaceX, Elon Musk, was locked out of Twitter briefly today after he tweeted about bitcoin. The CEO of Tesla tweeted, "Wanna buy some Bitcoin?" with a photo of an anime girl with a bitcoin logo.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Wanna buy some Bitcoin? <a href="https://t.co/9ZbBJ5fuVq">pic.twitter.com/9ZbBJ5fuVq</a></p>— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1054520588734058496?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 22, 2018</a></blockquote>
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The billionaire genius has been known to do his fair share of trolling on Twitter; he even lost his position as chairman at Tesla when the Securities and Exchange Commission charged him with securities fraud for a Tweet he made about taking the company private. Last August, the Goldwater reported, "Over the weekend, Mr. Musk had tweeted a video parody of Hitler "Shorting Tesla Stock," which targeted his foes."
Related coverage: <a href="https://thegoldwater.com/news/36430-Marijuana-Tesla-Musk-Takes-A-Puff-And-Shares-Take-A-Hit">Marijuana Tesla - Musk Takes A Puff And Shares Take A Hit</a>
Twitter indicated to Musk that they thought the tweet about bitcoin was a sign that his account had been hacked and it was subsequently locked as a precaution. There has been a rash of fake accounts posing as Musk but promoting cryptocurrency scams, sometimes in replies to his own tweets. A spokeswoman for Twitter declined to comment saying, "For privacy and security reasons, we don't comment on individual accounts."
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Twitter thought I got hacked & locked my account haha</p>— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1054601360530784258?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 23, 2018</a></blockquote>
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According to BBC, Musk's Twitter account was locked, not blocked and it was purely as a security measure. Musk eventually tweeted that he sorted out the issue with Twitter himself. Apparently, the tech guru has been on an anime tear that was peaked by the Japanese art form in movies such as "Your Name" and "Princess Mononoke."
Related coverage: <a href="https://thegoldwater.com/news/33384-Tesla-Halted-For-Possible-Securities-Fraud-As-Musk-Sends-Hitler-Memes-Video">Tesla Halted For Possible Securities Fraud As Musk Sends Hitler Memes (Video)</a>
Musk isn't the only high-profile Twitter user who was flagged over anime tweets. Almost all popular Twitter users ranging from President Trump to Bill Gates and Warren Buffet all have several spoof accounts posing as the real person. One strategy used by the hackers includes registering accounts to an unrelated name that gains a Twitter-verified tick only to then change their image and username to impersonate the targeted public figure.
<img src="https://media.8ch.net/file_store/f9bec3c8d3573cd64a2e6015403c2bae596d09defb61e11fd86754892194af68.jpg" style="max-height:640px;max-width:360px;">
<span style="margin-top:15px;rgba(42,51,6,0.7);font-size:12px;">@WarrenBuffert | Twitter</span>
A detailed report by cyber-security firm Duo Lab published in August explained how software tools that are also known as "bots" are being used to automate scams like the ones mentioned above. If you have 1,000 fake twitter accounts promoting a scam, the odds are at least one or two people out of that thousand are going to fall for it, so automation allows them to upscale the scams exponentially.
Such bots have been used to automate scams and avoided detection by staying a step ahead of Twitter's security measures and making minor edits to the stolen profile images to avoid algorithm detection. Musk has complained about the fake accounts before and even sought help to "get rid of the annoying scam spammers" from the creator of Dogecoin, Jackson Palmer.
Related coverage: <a href="https://thegoldwater.com/news/38169-Terminus-Tesla-SEC-Confirms-Fraud-Investigation-After-Musk-Tweets">Terminus Tesla? - SEC Confirms Fraud Investigation After Musk Tweets</a>
Palmer's answer to the problem suggested the social media network needed to find a way to weed out the fake posts automatically. Other people are calling for Twitter to be more proactive in tackling the problem. Maybe if the far-left company spent less time banning people for having an NPC meme for their avatar because it triggered soy-filled SJW's, they could probably tackle the problem of fake accounts.
One thing that Twitter would say about the situation is, "We are proactively tackling so-called cryptocurrency scams on the platform. In the last week alone, user impressions have fallen by a multiple of 10, a significant improvement on previous action rates."
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Elon Musk Mocks Bitcoin Security And Scams With Tongue-In-Cheek Tweet <a href="https://t.co/l4MKwCgHSJ">https://t.co/l4MKwCgHSJ</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/bitcoin?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#bitcoin</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/crypto?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#crypto</a> <a href="https://t.co/qYJDruaLax">pic.twitter.com/qYJDruaLax</a></p>— CryptoNews (@betbybitcoins) <a href="https://twitter.com/betbybitcoins/status/1054657271727382528?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 23, 2018</a></blockquote>
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Musk became the target of NPCs in recent months when he called a British diver involved in the Thailand Cave Rescue, a pedophile in a tweet. Musk later apologized, but then shortly after he doubled down and called the man a pedophile again. Musk's followers criticized him for dropping the accusation without any proof.
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