Twitter Locks Your Account If Elon Musk Becomes Your Display Name

Want to go kicked out from your Twitter account? Try changing the display name to Elon Musk.

The social media service is automatically locking down Twitter accounts that try to impersonate the famous tech CEO. The reason? Too many cryptocurrency scammers take been exploiting Musk's proper name to promote their schemes.

Elon Musk Twitter Scam Lock Down

The account lockdowns appear to be geared at stopping spam bot. For a homo, the restrictions tin can exist hands lifted. When you alter your profile's display name to Elon Musk, Twitter will say information technology's noticed some unusual activity on your account. To unlock it, y'all'll need to commencement pass a CAPTCHA test to prove you lot're human being, and so verify your mobile phone number.

The new safeguard, which was noticed by The Verge, is part of Twitter's ongoing effort to rein in spam over the platform. "This is an evolving challenge," the visitor told PCMag. "Equally such, we're rapidly developing our response to be more active and effective in detecting these behaviors and enforcing our policies —particularly as it relates to deceptive cryptocurrency accounts in violation of our spam rules."

The cryptocurrency scams, which have been going on for months, generally involve a Twitter business relationship impersonating a celebrity and then claiming to offer gratis Bitcoin to whatsoever followers. To receive the money, followers must kickoff confirm their eligibility by sending a bit of their ain Bitcoin to the scammer's virtual wallet.

Elon Musk Twitter Scam

The scams themselves tin be easy to observe if you wait closely at the Twitter account's handle and which celebrity it's impersonating; for case, the simulated account could be registered to @DoonaldTrump65 or @EloonMusk, neither of which belong to President Donald Trump's or Musk's official Twitter handles. Nevertheless, enough of innocent people have fallen for the con, which has concluded upward generating thousands of dollars for the scammers involved.

Twitter didn't go into details into its latest efforts to root out the scams. But the automated account lockdowns also utilize to other notable figures in the cryptocurrency world including antivirus software creator John McAfee and Justin Sun, founder of Tron, a digital token. PCMag tried changing an business relationship'south display proper noun to both names, and Twitter immediately locked information technology down.

Presumably, the new measure out volition prevent bots from automatically creating Twitter accounts to fuel the cryptocurrency scams. But information technology won't entirely foreclose human users from changing their Twitter display names. All you need to practise is pass the CAPTCHA exam and provide a mobile phone number. Once you do, you'll be free to change your display name however you like information technology, whether it exist to Elon Musk or Donald Trump.