Eccentric tech entrepreneur and founder of Space X and electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla Motors, Elon Musk, is reportedly getting fed up with the cryptocurrency giveaway scam bots that have been plaguing popular social media platform Twitter for the better part of a year.
As a result, he has turned to the creator of the cryptocurrency Dogecoin to seek a solution to the ongoing issue.
Elon Musk Asks Dogecoin Creator Jackson Palmer for Help
The widespread prevalence and frequency of Twitter spambots promoting fake cryptocurrency giveaway scams has finally got to Elon Musk, according to recent public comments he made via his Twitter account.
Musk tweeted at Jackson Palmer, the founder of the Dogecoin meme cryptocurrency, asking if he “can help get rid of the annoying scam spammers,” saying it would be “much appreciated.” Musk’s comment may have also contained a tongue-in-cheek nod to Dogecoin. Dogecoin was created as a “joke” to honor the Shiba Inu dog meme that often uses the term “much wow.”
Palmer had previously developed a script to block the scam bots in the past, sharing the code with Musk, claiming its “short, simple and you just run it with cron somewhere.”
Palmer turned the conversation toward Twitter itself, suggesting Jack Dorsey, Twitter CEO, and his team “should definitely automate and fix this problem on their end.”
Elon Musk: From Impressed to Annoyed
Musk is among the tech industry figure heads often impersonated by Twitter scam bots. Others include Changpeng Zhao, Binance CEO, actor William Shatner, and even United States President Donald Trump. Many have been forced to include “not giving away cryptocurrency” in their Twitter usernames to try and save investors from being duped.
Musk recently tweeted, appearing impressed by the scam bots, saying they had “mad skillz.” It didn’t take long, however, for Musk’s amusement to turn into annoyance.
The public social media conversation caught the attention of Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin who replied to Musk imploring Dorsey to “help us please.”
Twitter Not Doing Enough to Protect Users
As Buterin and Musk’s conversation suggests, the consensus has been that Twitter isn’t doing enough to prevent their users from being repeatedly subjected to such scams.
Dorsey said back in March that the firm would be cracking down on crypto scams on the platform, but the issue has only further spread throughout 2018. Dorsey reaffirmed his plan to rid the platform of “scams and misinformation,” telling Congress at a recent Committee on Energy and Commerce hearing that Twitter was looking into blockchain in an effort to protect consumers.
Research firm Duo Security recently discovered a bot net consisting of at least 15,000 Twitter bots working together to perpetuate cryptocurrency giveaway scams. The scheme often involves a Twitter account posing as a popular business figure or cryptocurrency industry icon, and promotes a giveaway in which a user must send a specific amount of cryptocurrency, usually Ethereum, to an address to receive a larger sum of crypto in return.
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