Twitter is blocking accounts named "Elon Musk": Here's why
What's the story
As part of its ongoing efforts to curb fake accounts, Twitter is now shutting down the accounts of those whose display names read "Elon Musk". Bizarre, right? Well, Twitter has a good reason for doing so. Apparently, many cryptocurrency scammers have been using Musk's name on their Twitter accounts to promote their devious schemes, and the move comes as a countermeasure.
Lockdown
The account locking seems to be aimed at spam bots
First spotted by The Verge, the account lockdown precipitated by the use of Musk's name appears to be geared towards curbing spam bots. When you change your profile name to Elon Musk, Twitter immediately says that it has noticed "unusual activity" on your account, and locks it down. However, humans can easily unlock an account by entering the CAPTCHA and verifying their mobile number.
Information
Using some other celebrity names also results in automatic lockdown
Interestingly, according to PCMag, Twitter's automatic lockdown also applies to other notable figures apart from Musk, including the likes of antivirus software creator John McAfee, and Justin Sun, the creator of digital currency TRON. The entire list of people, however, isn't known as of now.
Scam
How was Musk's name being used to scam people?
As far as the cryptocurrency scam is concerned, scammers have, for months, been impersonating celebrities on Twitter and offering Bitcoins to their followers. The catch? Followers must first confirm their eligibility to receive the money by sending some of their own Bitcoins to a scammer's virtual wallet. Considering Musk's recent (in)fame on Twitter, it makes sense that scammers were exploiting his name.
Prevention
You can easily avoid getting conned on Twitter
However, it's worth noting that these Twitter-based cryptocurrency scams using celebrity names is easily detectable. While scammers have been adopting celebrity names as their display names, their Twitter handles give them away. For instance, a scammer impersonating Musk might have a handle called @EloonMusk, which is different from Musk's official one. Thus, a little vigilance can go a long way in avoiding getting scammed.