Twitter stepping up efforts to block crypto scams, highlighting key issues
Last night, Vladislav Ginzburg and I recorded an episode of the Sunset Crypto Podcast with Bitcoin Bella. She’s awesome and so is the whole episode. Hopefully we’ll have that ready for you guys this week.
Follow us and her on Twitter: @Uncrypt_Vlad, @UncryptWill, @BitcoinBella
Speaking of Twitter, news that the company is stepping up efforts to block crypto scammers is theoretically a good thing. Twitter, along with a couple of other social media, has become a watering hole for the latest and greatest that crypto has to offer. It’s also become the best place to con people out of their digital coins.
Facebook announced that it would ban all cryptocurrency ads earlier this year, which Fortune points out, has not completely worked. Twitter’s move isn’t quite as far-reaching, as it seems to explicitly focus on bad actors — pump-and-dump schemes, impostor accounts claiming that they will send you free coins, and the like. Making life tougher on people who smear the good name of crypto deserves praise.
It’s never that simple, though, especially in crypto. Decentralization purists will be quick to point out that this puts Twitter, a centralized entity, in the throne of what happens to one of the most powerful discussion forums in the entire space. Of course, Twitter is the reason that forum exists in the first place, but in the pursuit of the free and frictionless exchange of information, Twitter is paradoxically an enabler of the cause and a censorship agent. Bitcoin and blockchain are compelling technologies in part because they’re censorship resistant.
If you think that I’m overstating the risk that comes from Twitter itself, you may be surprised to learn that Twitter blocked Kraken Exchange’s verified user support account yesterday — an account that was actively trying to help identify and warn against scammers! The account was thankfully restored, but the risk remains the same and the anti-censorship philosophers of crypto took note of Twitter’s centralized power.
Don’t be surprised if we see a decentralized social media platform like Twitter make waves at some point in the future.
Read the entire story here, courtesy of Fortune.
- Japanese regulators to raise standards for crypto exchanges — (Reuters)
- Binance error causes unauthorized conversion of altcoins into Bitcoin — (TheNextWeb)
- Cambodia joins the run of states launching cryptos, citing Venezuela— (Express)
- Coinbase is launching its own crypto index fund for accredited investors — (Washington Post)
