Elon Musk points out ‘crypto bots’ are skewing Twitter’s active user numbers

The comment section on Elon Musk’s tweet is flooded with cryptocurrency scammers and bots, every time the tech evangel posts something about cryptocurrency. Cyber scammers are using bots and malicious links to deceive unsolicited individuals of their cryptocurrency.
The Tesla CEO was quick to acknowledge this. He noted that the prevalence of crypto bots and spam accounts, is skewing Twitter’s active user numbers. Scammers use a malicious link along with a brief tweet in response to Elon Musk’s tweets to gain attention of his millions of followers. The link often takes users to a malicious website that is  ultimately designed to steal cryptocurrency out of crypto wallets.
In a tweet posted on Sunday, Musk asked ‘is Twitter dying?’ as Twitter’s most popular accounts, based on follower numbers, are not very active. “Now subtract crypto scam accounts that twitter constantly shows as “real” people in everyone’s feed,” he added.

Now subtract crypto scam accounts that twitter constantly shows as “real” people in everyone’s feed
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 9, 2022
This development comes after Musk shared a poll earlier in the week, in which he asked if Twitter users want an edit button, which more than 4.4 million people responded to, and 74 per cent in favour.

However, this is not the first time Musk has raised concerns about Twitter not taking strict actions against scammers using bots to target individuals—mainly his followers. Musk has been grappling with cryptocurrency scammers for quite a while, in 2018 he called attention to Ethereum spambots.
In October 2021, Musk himself mocked scammers with a tweet about Dogecoin. Fraudsters typically promise to double the initial amount of money sent to them, but the billionaire turned the tables on scammers offering them a much less lucrative deal.

Venture capital Paul Graham had commented on the issue saying that it might be difficult for Twitter to detect spam. Meanwhile, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in 2020, said that users lost over $2 million in cryptocurrency to scammers.
In other news, Musk became Twitter’s largest shareholder, following which Twitter announced that Musk will also be joining the board of directors. However, in a new tweet Parag Agrawal, the Twitter CEO mentions that Musk has now declined from joining the company’s board.