{"id":3539,"date":"2018-10-23T17:23:55","date_gmt":"2018-10-23T17:23:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/elon-musk-says-twitter-blocked-him-after-bitcoin-tweet\/"},"modified":"2018-10-23T17:23:55","modified_gmt":"2018-10-23T17:23:55","slug":"elon-musk-says-twitter-blocked-him-after-bitcoin-tweet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/elon-musk-says-twitter-blocked-him-after-bitcoin-tweet\/","title":{"rendered":"Elon Musk says Twitter blocked him after Bitcoin tweet"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div property=\"articleBody\">\n<figure class=\"media-landscape has-caption full-width lead\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>                <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"js-image-replace\" alt=\"Elon Musk\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/320\/cpsprodpb\/F4CD\/production\/_103996626_53c31313-ea70-4ca9-aa65-eee54d7a4396.jpg\" width=\"976\" height=\"549\"\/><span class=\"off-screen\">Image copyright<\/span><br \/>\n                 <span class=\"story-image-copyright\">Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><figcaption class=\"media-caption\"><span class=\"off-screen\">Image caption<\/span><br \/>\n                <span class=\"media-caption__text\"><br \/>\n                    Twitter apparently believed someone else was in control of Mr Musk&#8217;s account<br \/>\n                <\/span><br \/>\n            <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"story-body__introduction\">Elon Musk says Twitter briefly blocked him because the tech firm suspected his account had been hacked.<\/p>\n<p>The Tesla chief indicated the safety precaution was prompted by a tweet he had sent asking: &#8220;Wanna buy some Bitcoin?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Several fake accounts have previously used images of Mr Musk and variations of his name to promote cryptocurrency scams, sometimes within replies to his posts.<\/p>\n<p>Twitter declined to comment.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;For privacy and security reasons, we don&#8217;t comment on individual accounts,&#8221; explained a spokeswoman.<\/p>\n<p>However, the BBC understands that the account was locked down rather than &#8220;blocked&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Musk&#8217;s suspect tweet had featured an anime drawing of a girl wearing Bitcoin-themed clothing.<\/p>\n<p>The Japanese art form is a current interest of the entrepreneur, who recently commented on his love for the movies Your Name and Princess Mononoke.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Musk is far from being the only celebrity whose identity has been spoofed by those seeking publicity for dubious crypto-offers.<\/p>\n<p>Others include:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"story-body__unordered-list\">\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">President Trump<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">Bill Gates<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">Warren Buffet<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">John McAfee<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">Bloomberg reporters Olga Kharif and Lily Katz<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape has-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>                 <span class=\"off-screen\">Image copyright<\/span><br \/>\n                 <span class=\"story-image-copyright\">Twitter<\/span><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><figcaption class=\"media-caption\"><span class=\"off-screen\">Image caption<\/span><br \/>\n                <span class=\"media-caption__text\"><br \/>\n                    Fake accounts impersonating the famed investor Warren Buffet have also been used<br \/>\n                <\/span><br \/>\n            <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In some cases, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.coindesk.com\/twitter-let-a-fake-elon-musk-account-promote-a-crypto-scam\/\" class=\"story-body__link-external\">accounts are first registered<\/a> to an unrelated name that gains a Twitter-verified tick only to have their image and username changed afterwards to impersonate a famous figure.<\/p>\n<p>Cyber-security firm Duo Lab <a href=\"https:\/\/duo.com\/assets\/pdf\/Duo-Labs-Dont-At-Me-Twitter-Bots.pdf\" class=\"story-body__link-external\">published a report in August detailing how software tools known as &#8220;bots&#8221;<\/a> are being used to automate such scams. It said that they had avoided detection by taking steps such as making minor edits to the stolen profile images.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Musk has previously complained about the phenomenon, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/elonmusk\/status\/1041572165898792961\" class=\"story-body__link-external\">and sought help to<\/a> &#8220;get rid of the annoying scam spammers&#8221; from Jackson Palmer, the creator of Dogecoin.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Palmer suggested the social network needed to find a way to <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ummjackson\/status\/1041577055970893824\" class=\"story-body__link-external\">automatically weed out such posts<\/a>, and others have also <a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/billybambrough\/2018\/05\/23\/bloomberg-reporters-the-latest-tools-of-crypto-scammers-but-not-the-last\/#1377e7d2292e\" class=\"story-body__link-external\">urged it to be more proactive<\/a> in tackling the problem.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We are proactively tackling so-called cryptocurrency scams on the platform,&#8221; a spokeswoman for Twitter told the BBC.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In the last week alone, user impressions have fallen by a multiple of 10, a significant improvement on previous action rates.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Mr Musk has faced criticism for his own Twitter activity in recent months after repeatedly accusing a man of being a paedophile without presenting evidence, and claiming he had &#8220;secured&#8221; funding to take Tesla private when a deal had not been finalised.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"http:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/technology-45953747\">Source<\/a> by <a href=\"\">[author_name]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Twitter apparently believed someone else was in control of Mr Musk&#8217;s account Elon Musk says Twitter briefly blocked him because the tech firm suspected his account had been hacked. The Tesla chief indicated the safety precaution was prompted by a tweet he had sent asking: &#8220;Wanna buy some Bitcoin?&#8221; &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":3540,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3539\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}