Elon Musk suffered a temporary ban of his Twitter account after advising people to buy Bitcoin, he revealed October 22.
Musk: Twitter ‘Thought I Got Hacked’
In a move which focused attention on the social media platform’s controversial cryptocurrency policy, Twitter cut off access to Musk’s account after he sent a tweet as part of a debate on a separate topic.
“Twitter thought I got hacked & locked my account,” he subsequently confirmed.
Twitter thought I got hacked & locked my account haha
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 23, 2018
Cryptocurrency figures were quick to react, UK-based entrepreneur and investor Alistair Milne suggesting the tweet’s inclusion of the term ‘Bitcoin’ had unfairly led to the block, which would not have happened with posts containing certain other terms.
“Tweet about Bitcoin = OMG, hacked, lock his account!!” he summarized.
Twitter’s Bitcoin Fails
Musk frequently mentions cryptocurrency and interacts with its online community via Twitter, in September publicly reaching out to Dogecoin creator Jackson Palmer for help fighting the platform’s now infamous scam bots.
The botnet phenomenon served to increase criticism of Twitter which already abounded due to an unpopular ban on cryptocurrency advertising which began earlier this year.
Despite claiming it wished to avoid subjecting users to scams by using a ban, executives later came under fire for failing to address the bots, which continue to advertise fraudulent competitions and free money while impersonating well-known cryptocurrency figures and businesses.
The backlash has also taken the form of a mass migration to open source alternative Mastodon, Bitcoinist reported.
Twitter meanwhile remains the only one of the ‘big three’ internet players which instigated crypto ad bans not to have reversed its decision to any extent.
Both Facebook and Google, having drawn similar ire, later revealed they would relax their restrictions.
At the same time, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, who also leads pro-Bitcoin payment gateway Square, has adopted a highly-bullish outlook on Bitcoin’s future, suggesting it could become the world’s “single currency” by 2028.
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Images courtesy of Shutterstock, Twitter