Changing Your Name to Elon Musk on Twitter Can Get Your Account Locked

• Twitter seeks to combat cryptocurrency scammers by locking out all unverified accounts that attempt to change the display name to Elon Musk.
• In case an account is locked out on the social media platform, users need to pass a CAPTCHA test and provide a valid phone number to regain access to the account.
• The move by the social media company has been implemented to stop the large number of users who mimic the SpaceX CEO’s profile to scam unsuspecting users into cryptocurrency payouts.

Twitter revealed that as part of the platform’s efforts to combat spam and other forms of malicious activity, the social media company will be testing new measures to combat its underlying problems. With recent cryptocurrency scams involving fake accounts pretending to be Elon Musk and asking for cryptocurrency donations, Twitter is locking all accounts that do not have a verified phone number and attempt to use the SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s name as their own on the social media platform.

Image Courtesy of The Verge

The social media company revealed in a statement, “This is an evolving challenge. As such, we’re rapidly developing our response to be more agile and effective in detecting these behaviors and enforcing our policies — particularly as it relates to deceptive cryptocurrency accounts in violation of our spam rules.” While the method implemented by Twitter is not the most effective, it can at least block accounts that do not have a phone number linked. The recent cryptocurrency scams that were deployed promised Twitter users a chance to be a part of a new kind of blockchain technology that is under development at SpaceX. In exchange for the exclusive membership, fake cryptocurrency tokens, and a Tesla giveaway, users were asked to fork out some cash which led to hundreds of users being duped.

Another famous Twitter user whose name was used to fuel similar scams is Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin. Buterin changed his display name to “Not giving away ETH” to prevent users from being scammed. Most of the scammers often reply to tweets from the legitimate accounts and dupe others into depositing money or cryptocurrency to private accounts.

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