Cryptocurrency Scams? In My Fandom?
It’s more likely than you think.
ARMY, it’s been a crazy couple of weeks, hasn’t it? Uncovering an international ring masquerading as part of the fandom to mine our engagement for kickbacks, stan accounts being offered up for sale, bounties being placed on those ARMY accounts that sounded the alarm. Seems more like the plot of a crime drama, but for us it’s just another Tuesday.
Giveaways and giving in general have long been a part of internal ARMY cultur, albums, concert tickets, or merch bought by fans raffled to other ARMY. Often to promote streaming goals or new album releases. This generosity is one of the unique characteristics of ARMY.
Now suspended user BTS_History613 entered into a giveaway of $10,000 from YouTube personality Mr Beast with a stated goal of using the money for the then upcoming BE album, and that seems to have been the slippery slope. Soon dozens of accounts were hosting giveaways asking participants to follow multiple other users to enter.
Why it’s not harmless
Suspicion was aroused when an ARMY noticed that some of the companies being linked to giveaways had zero internet footprint outside of a newly created twitter account. Others noticed that they began receiving calls from foreign countries after clicking on giveaway links.
Upon questioning, the giveaway hosts revealed that they were receiving compensation for hosting the giveaways. They later claimed that they were donating the money to a local area for disaster relief but upon scrutiny multiple accounts had the same apology and “proof” of donations. Not only is this a huge breach of ARMY ethics, it violates all social media TOS and US federal law.
Social media influencers are required by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to disclose any post that been incentivized with compensation. By not telling their followers they were receiving money to host these giveaways these influencers were engaging in deceptive practices.
From FTC Guidance “As an influencer, it’s your responsibility to make these disclosures, to be familiar with the Endorsement Guides, and to comply with laws against deceptive ads. Don’t rely on others to do it for you.”
Other solo fanbases were claiming to be using crypto partnership giveaways to raise money for potential mixtapes, as well as collecting donations from other solo fans and some misguided ARMY. Now that those accounts have been suspended we are left wondering where is the money now? Was much of the drama they have instigated over the last 6 months stoked to scam more money from the fanbase?
User “jiminthrusts” sold their account to the now suspended @FortuneZmarkets after amassing over 100k followers. Other ARMY accounts with as few as 5k followers were being offered hundreds of dollars for their accounts by advertising firms. As of writing this, accounts of multiple fandom origins are being offered up for sale under the hashtag #RatsZone.
Twitter terms of service prohibit users from selling accounts.
The damage and how to protect yourself
Trust, kindness and generosity are the foundations of our fandom, ARMY are well known for welcoming newcomers with open arms and boundless enthusiasm. That trust has been damaged, and when we tried to purge the bad actors in our own house the scammer community was not pleased with losing access to the vastness of ARMY.
Several accounts were harassing those of us putting together warning threads and reporting accounts to Twitter support. Others went so far as to put monetary bounties out to spur their followers to mass report the ARMY accounts sounding the alarm.
Many of the ARMY accounts that took the time to find the culprits and gather evidence had to put their accounts on private due to the volume of harassment and out of fear of being suspended.
Twitter has responded with a statement to Economic Times India “We’ve taken action on a few thousand such accounts for attempting to inauthentically inflate their following and amplify content,”
Social media engagement is big business and the users are the product being sold, it’s important to take steps to protect yourself. Follow-for-follow accounts, giveaways conditional on following and streaming illegal content under hashtags are all ways to quickly farm accounts to be sold.
Before you follow another account or when you get new followers it is important to check: The age of the account, who they follow, and the content in their likes and replies. If you think you’ve encountered an account engaging in illicit practices you should report them to Twitter. If you have been contacted by anyone that you feel might be a scam you should report that to your countries cybercrime division. Any scams that are seeking U.S. participants are subject to U. S. legal jurisdiction. Report it to the Internet Crime Complaint Center.
