Twitter is yet to restrict Elon Musk impersonators who are using deceptive tactics such as using the same profile photo and name of the Tesla and SpaceX CEO to trick people.
The moment Elon Musk posts something on Twitter, some scammers running different crypto scams respond to his tweets and try to steal some attention — and also money from his followers — by impersonating him. Bad actors use deceptive tactics such as using the same profile photo of the Tesla and SpaceX CEO that he has on his official account and his profile name, but with some fancy fonts. Interestingly, the accounts also have the ‚Verified‘ mark to easily pretend to be Musk, who, of course, has the blue tick on his account. Scammers use a link along with a brief tweet in response to Elon Musk’s tweets to get noticed by his millions of followers. The link often takes users to a malicious website that ultimately aims to steal money. Gadgets 360 has noticed that crypto scammers have taken a new pace in impersonating Elon Musk and using Twitter for their campaigns in the recent past — especially after the billionaire showed his immense interest in crypto assets including Bitcoin, Ether, and Dogecoin and his (now discarded) plans of joining of the Twitter board. Twitter users are impersonating Elon Musk to scam people on the platform People have also started giving more focus to these scams — unknowingly — since Musk’s tweets have influenced trading decisions in the crypto market. On Saturday, Musk himself acknowledged the impersonating account issue on Twitter. „Now subtract crypto scam accounts that Twitter constantly shows as ‚real‘ people in everyone’s feed,“ he tweeted in response to a tweet showing the growth of Twitter users over the last 11 years. Musk earlier this year also raised concerns about Twitter not taking strict actions against impersonators running crypto scams on the platform. Since scammers use mostly the same profile photos that Musk has on his account and his name, it becomes difficult to determine their legitimacy at first glance. The accounts are also verified — making it even harder for some users to realise these are scammer accounts. Experts believe that in most cases, scammers hack verified accounts that don’t have many followers — at least not at par with Musk who has over 81.1 million followers on the platform. Once they get the verified account, they change the name and profile picture to make them appear like Musk’s account. „What scammers do is go to an actual Elon Musk’s tweet and then post a reply — that way a casual reader skimming the thread on Twitter will see the original Musk’s tweet,“ said Noah Giansiracusa, Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Data Science at Bentley University, who recently wrote a book called “How Algorithms Create and Prevent Fake News” to point out challenges in using AI and human moderation to restrict false content online. „Users will then see what looks like a follow-up comment by him, but that’s really the reply from the hacked verified account of a different user who has changed the name and profile picture to look like Musk’s.“ Giansiracusa added that users can understand the difference between a scam and a genuine tweet by looking at the handle that follows the ‚@‘ sign of the account from where the tweet is posted rather than its name and profile photo. However, he underlined that it is so easy to accidentally overlook it even if someone has that knowledge.
