The giant Twitter began to track the cryptocurrency scam accounts and suspend them. The platform’s team have already managed to identify several false accounts.

“These scams are getting out of hand”

The professor at Cornell University and Co-Director of IC3- initiative for cryptocurrencies and contracts- Emin Gün Sirer wrote on 6 March 2018 on social media platform Twitter about his worries related to cryptocurrency scam accounts. “These scams are getting out of hand. @jack, @twitter, if you can’t detect this kind of brazen scam, what hope do you have of improving your platform?”.

It did not take long before he got an official answer. The CEO of Twitter Jack Dorsey replied that “We are on it”.

Of course, the statement made drew the attention and criticism of many users, as well as developers. For example, crypto exchange Kraken has posted that in the past few days a series of accounts managed by the platform have been restricted. “Strange that our initial appeal was also apparently handled by an automated system. Thank you all for your public outrage. Stay vigilant.”, posted the Kraken Team.

@bitcoinmom’s account was shadow banned

The concerns of crypto exchange Kraken were temporary. We can’t say the same thing about the influencer Brooke Maller, aka @bitcoinmom.

She told CoinDesk that “People just started DMing me that they couldn’t see my tweets in threads. It would say ‘tweet unavailable.’ Others said they aren’t getting notifications when I tweet. But no word from Twitter. There is some really weird shit going on for crypto Twitter people right now. A rash of permanent bans and suspensions.”.

As she explained, her account was “shadow banned” by Twitter, this means that the account was rendered unviewable by others, without notifying them.

“Apparently @neerajka is shadowbanned”

Another case is related to Neeraj Agrawal’s account, the Director of Communications at the Washington DC Coin Center. He has also reported that his Twitter profile was suspended. “I think I have been shadowbanned by twitter”, wrote Agrawal. He used the Twitter Shadowban Tester and the results met his expectations: “no tweets made by @neerajka were found, no reply tweets made by @neerajka were found. Apparently @neerajka is shadowbanned.”.

“It looks like the XRP community were targeted”

Many users’ accounts that promote Ripple’s XRP were also banned. Kieran Kelly, an investor posted on his Twitter profile that “Honestly we have no idea. We didn’t do anything wrong and no reason was provided. It looks like the XRP community were targeted.”.

Twitter scammers that use verified accounts to trick crypto holders are increasing significantly. Many of Twitter’s dissatisfaction was actually the result of fake copies of official accounts. After a verified account posts news about cryptocurrency, scammers are copying it and post supportive messages.

Is this a method to protect the official users or just to bother especially Ripple’s Twitter accounts? A thing is for sure- scam accounts are increasing and we suggest not to trust all Twitter accounts.