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Twitter Is Locking Accounts That Change Their Name to Elon Musk

Twitter Is Locking Accounts That Change Their Name to Elon Musk

By Tasneem Akolawala | Updated: 26 July 2018 20:23 IST

Highlights

Twitter is locking unverified accounts that change their name to Musk's
Access can be regained with a CAPTCHA test
Move to curb the rise of cryptocurrency scams on Twitter

In a bid to combat the increasing cryptocurrency scams, Twitter is now blocking all unverified users that change their profile name to Elon Musk. Several users have been complaining about being duped on Twitter by fraudulent offers that promise huge amount of Ether cryptocurrency in return of small initial deposits. These offers are posted by fake crypto-celeb Twitter profiles, and the unwary users are falling prey to these scams. In a bid to reduce this abuse, Twitter has decided to lock all accounts that are unverified and not associated with a phone number if users change their display name to SpaceX CEO and Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

All of these locked accounts will then have to pass a CAPTCHA test, and provide a phone number as well to gain access back into their accounts. The social media site does this to ascertain that the user isn't a bot created by phishers. Twitter has been on a clean-up spree recently, deactivating at least 58 million user accounts in the final three months of 2017, in a bid to combat abuse and fake news.

"As part of our continuing efforts to combat spam and malicious activity on our service, we're testing new measures to challenge accounts that use terms commonly associated with spam campaigns. We are continually refining these detections based on changes in spammy activity," Twitter spokesperson told The Verge.

After the account is verified through the CAPTCHA test, then the user can change their display name to Elon Musk if they so desire, the report states. In March, Twitter confirmed that it is working on curbing the rise of copycat handles, as the issue of copying verified Twitter accounts to trick cryptocurrency users was becoming increasingly prevalent. The cryptocurrency scam on Twitter has resulted in several users losing their digital assets through fake giveaways by fraud accounts. These accounts promise a big chunk of Ether cryptocurrency in return of small deposits. In order to make the posts seem more legitimate, the spam accounts posted supportive messages, claiming that they have received the returns.

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