Twitter/Youtube Bitcoin Scams

[c_atlas]

What is the crypto community doing/(able to do) about Twitter and Youtube crypto scams? The other day I was recommended a SpaceX live stream that was promoting a btc/eth scam, and this was on Youtube's homepage. I've seen these scams on twitter for years, and they only seem to be getting worse, so I don't have much faith in either of these platforms solving the problem any time soon.

Is there anything we can do as a community to prevent people from sending their crypto to these scammers? Could we build bots that crawl these social networks and add potential scam addresses to a database that wallets/exchanges can check against before letting users atomically send their crypto? I know the most obvious solution is to educate people to recognize scams, but that doesn't seem to be happening.

Here's some related links
https://www.coindesk.com/apple-co-founder-steve-wozniak-sues-youtube-over-bitcoin-giveaway-scams
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/elon-musk-twitter-scam-bots-cryptocurrency-bitcoin-a9314356.html

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[btc_angela]

For us, the only weapon for this scam is to,

- Educate ourselves. There's no such thing as free BTC. Not even people who are very rich such such Elon Musk and Bill Gates will give anyone free money. Don't be greedy.

- Report those malicious websites to Youtube/Google, and to it's domain registrars so that it will be taken down.

- You can used this websites to check for scam bitcoin addresses,

   https://www.bitcoinabuse.com/ and https://scam-alert.io/
  
- Stay alert and be vigilant.

- Frequent this board: Scam Accusations

[logfiles]

Where there is money or something of value, there are scammers. We can't stop scam from happening. It's been there for centuries. All we can try to do is try to put up warnings or guides of how people can safeguard their cryptocurrencies. It's up to the people to take responsibility and stop being so greedy and careless with money.

For example the Youtube/twitter bitcoin scams are reported every day but some people out there still fall for them

[Ryker1]

Well, that is right. In addition, use your ^{[common sense]}, --always put in your mind that there is no free given money on the internet most especially those random people's account asking to double your money in just a few minutes. Educating ourselves is the best weapon against these scammers, no one will fall to the traps of scammers if there are no dumb and greed people. I do hope that the recent twitter hacked account that scammed thousands of bitcoin in different dumb people will give a lesson to them to realize their mistakes.

[khaled0111]

There is no way to utterly stop these scammers, they will always find away to come back either by creating a new profile or a new scam scheme.

What can be done is trying to minimise the damage by reporting scammers' profiles to whatever platform they use and writing comments on those videos/tweets to warn others viewers/followers.

[pixie85]

These scams are build on greed. Do you really think Bitcoin or the community has something to do with these scams?

When I see someone who tells me to send money to him and he will give me back 2x the amount I just laugh.

Would you send Elon your USD if he tweeted that for every 1000 USD he will send back 2000? I guess not. Why do people send these scammers cryptocurrencies?
Maybe because they don't treat their crypto seriously? Maybe because they don't think it's real money? Maybe because they think it's cheat money that can be hacked and multiplied?

Long ago there were fake blockchain hacking programs circulating in the Internet. Stupid and greedy people were installing them thinking they will hack blockchain and get free bitcoins.
The twitter scam is just another iteration of the same thing and you greedy people are still falling for this.

If you ask me what I can do about it my answer is nothing. I don't even want to do anything about it. Greedy and lazy people want everything to be done for them instead of thinking before they act.

[FlightyPouch]

Start sharing these sites to educate other people about it. Not all of us are aware of these scams so in order to avoid it, we share these sites for them to be warned and never click it. It is how the community can do about these scams, educate one another. Another thing is just learning more about these scams by ourselves.

[Kocret02]

sometimes there are loopholes to make this a scam, the lack of supervision on social media platforms about the bitcoin scam causes many scammers to be free. prevention is also not maximal so I think we ourselves have to be careful with scammer projects that are in public

[hatshepsut93]

During the last Twitter hack/scam,  Coinbase blocked withdrawing coins to scammers account, and there are some people who work on making an automated system for flagging as much of these doubling scam addresses as possible. Maybe one day someone will develop a browser addon that analyzes web pages and warns about scams, but people who are advanced enough to use such addons probably don't need them.

Unfortunately, there's really not much we can do about it. We can warn newbies about it every day, but a lot of people aren't reading this forum or other social platforms about Bitcoin.

[Kelvinid]

What is the crypto community doing/(able to do) about Twitter and Youtube crypto scams? The other day I was recommended a SpaceX live stream that was promoting a btc/eth scam, and this was on Youtube's homepage. I've seen these scams on twitter for years, and they only seem to be getting worse, so I don't have much faith in either of these platforms solving the problem any time soon.

YouTube just like to spread awareness to the public in regards to scamming issues and to guide people on how to deal with this. I'm not in disgrace with that seeing on their Homepage instead you can be thankful that they give support for this and so the public will be informed.

Is there anything we can do as a community to prevent people from sending their crypto to these scammers? Could we build bots that crawl these social networks and add potential scam addresses to a database that wallets/exchanges can check against before letting users atomically send their crypto? I know the most obvious solution is to educate people to recognize scams, but that doesn't seem to be happening.

Is was really hard when we all not be cooperating with this because we can't also stop those greedy hearts to fall into this kind of scheme. Scammers will take advantage over them and they can easily manipulate their minds. If we are about to help the community by minimizing these scamming activities, we should also have to help ourselves to change such greedy instinct into nothing.

[sheenshane]

Always prone to scam if there is something valuable on the internet and the most victims are greedy and naive newbies who want to have profit easily, the only way we can avoid to scam is observe first and be vigilant.

There are tons of bogus method in scamming people, some old tricks will work and recently that has happened on Twitter, hacking high-profile account and asking to double your Bitcoin, if you will analyze, it has the same trick, "Bitcoin Doubling" which is they promised to double your Bitcoin in a couple of hours. If you heard this kind of offer, you might start to doubt or else, stay away from them.

If you will watched a video on Youtube that you think it is scam or fraud, don't hesitate your self to report it. Just hit the report button on the video player menu. And in Bitcoin transaction address, just follow what btc_angela says.

[Oasisman]

I don't know If there's such thing as database or software that prevents users to send their cryptos to a certain scammer, and I doubt It's possible to stop a scammer using such tools.
But the very least thing we can do as a community is to inform everyone by posting awareness through social media platforms or in any crypto related forums.

~snip~

YouTube just like to spread awareness to the public in regards to scamming issues and to guide people on how to deal with this. I'm not in disgrace with that seeing on their Homepage instead you can be thankful that they give support for this and so the public will be informed.

No, I guess what the OP means is that YouTube has been supporting these live streamers from promoting scam specifically in cryptocurrency, and what's really disturbing is that, It was recommended and posted on the homepage.

[AmoreJaz]

For us, the only weapon for this scam is to,

- Educate ourselves. There's no such thing as free BTC. Not even people who are very rich such such Elon Musk and Bill Gates will give anyone free money. Don't be greedy.

- Report those malicious websites to Youtube/Google, and to it's domain registrars so that it will be taken down.

- You can used this websites to check for scam bitcoin addresses,

   https://www.bitcoinabuse.com/ and https://scam-alert.io/
  
- Stay alert and be vigilant.

- Frequent this board: Scam Accusations

pretty summarizes what to do with these never-ending scams in YT and other social media. and remember, those rich persons will not give free money to just random people, they usually spend on established charities and nonprofit organizations. so dont get your hopes up that someday they will just throw money into thin air.
and one more thing, if you are in doubt, your bestfriend google is here for you to check potential hits whether they have unresolved issues or existing scam allegations. thats the power of internet. you should not let yourself deceived by these overwhelming offers and rewards!

[Nameless27]

Social Media Platforms like Twitter or Youtube, can’t or would not assume a genuine or legit business posted on by a simple mere suspicion and without any complaints or case directly reported to them with the authority to verify such.

And by checking them means a waste of time or more manhours that will be something that Twitter and Youtube accounting can't handle for 330 million users worldwide and 2 billion YouTube.

And it is also the fact that Bitcoin Scams is rampant.

Is there anything we can do as a community to prevent people from sending their crypto to these scammers?

As a community, we have always talked about or giving warnings regarding this.
But as an individual bitcoin user we can just use a little brain, that's all really.

[livingfree]

It's a YouTube fault.

What we can do is keep reporting those videos that show in our recommendation. They have been silent with all of these scam ads and videos that got a lot of innocent viewers.

[coupable]

People greedness is the major key for scammers to make several tries over and over using various methods.
Some scam shemes are so clever to be easy spotted by a regular internet user. Scammers can give proofs of their credibilty for a long period before running out with money. I can mention all the scam exchanges who promoted themselves in both youtube and twitter, and most of those shitty ICOs. I can't blame Youtube/Twitter as they don't moderate scams, just like bitcointalk forum.
While some other shemes are so funny to be trusted. Even if Elon Mask himself promises to send back to me x4 the amount i will send, i wouldn't believe him. Just like the famous shemes created by Yobit exchange promising people to get 10% daily interest for their holdings, and promoted in forums and social platforms (including twitter). For those idiot shemes, the platform used to promote them is also responsible for what people may lost.

[c_atlas]

~snip~

YouTube just like to spread awareness to the public in regards to scamming issues and to guide people on how to deal with this. I'm not in disgrace with that seeing on their Homepage instead you can be thankful that they give support for this and so the public will be informed.

No, I guess what the OP means is that YouTube has been supporting these live streamers from promoting scam specifically in cryptocurrency, and what's really disturbing is that, It was recommended and posted on the homepage.

Right, I meant that scams were getting to the front page of youtube and weren't listed as scams. To make matters worse, some of these videos had over 3k likes and 30k+ views; coupled with the fact that they were promoted by youtube, they end up looking pretty legitimate.

I always report these things, but I feel like they don't come down fast enough. Some people in this thread seem to be claiming that the victims are greedy for falling for scams, and while that's certainly true in some cases, it's not hard to imagine that some people are just desperate or confused. Maybe for 90% of people, common sense helps them avoid these things, but there's clearly still a portion of bitcoin users who are actively falling victim to scammers. I don't think that every person can be helped, people still fall for fiat scams all the time. However, financial institutions and payment processors have invested heavily in fraud detection systems, shouldn't we do the same?

[Darker45]

I know the most obvious solution is to educate people to recognize scams, but that doesn't seem to be happening.

Not only is education the most obvious solution, it is also the best solution. You cannot effectively tell a person not to get into a scam without making him/her understand why it is a scam in the first place. It is hard to prohibit a person from investing in what seems to be a golden opportunity without enlightening him/her first.

Education is happening, albeit rather slowly. It is probably because the bait dangled in front is so enticing that a person who is not yet educated on crypto might think of it as a fleeting opportunity which he/she has to grab while it's still there. Not to mention that a lot of people are greedy and are easily blinded by offers of easy money.

[pooya87]

Is there anything we can do as a community to prevent people from sending their crypto to these scammers?

not really. you can't prevent people from being stupid. when someone is willing to jump in the shady van with the promise of candy there is nothing you can do to prevent them from being screwed! not to mention that they are adults so they should already know better not to trust and do some little research or even use their brain. some scams are too obvious it is ridiculous how someone falls for it.

Could we build bots that crawl these social networks and add potential scam addresses to a database that wallets/exchanges can check against before letting users atomically send their crypto?

no because that centralized database can also start scamming whoever uses it.

[Kemarit]

What is the crypto community doing/(able to do) about Twitter and Youtube crypto scams?

Nothing, it's either crypto enthusiast are dumb enough to fall for this scam.

The other day I was recommended a SpaceX live stream that was promoting a btc/eth scam, and this was on Youtube's homepage. I've seen these scams on twitter for years, and they only seem to be getting worse, so I don't have much faith in either of these platforms solving the problem any time soon.

They're business empire, they don't give a dime, about their platform being used, or shall we shall taken advantage of scammers.

Is there anything we can do as a community to prevent people from sending their crypto to these scammers? Could we build bots that crawl these social networks and add potential scam addresses to a database that wallets/exchanges can check against before letting users atomically send their crypto? I know the most obvious solution is to educate people to recognize scams, but that doesn't seem to be happening.

What others have said, education is the key. Bots are not the solution. Exchanges won't even move a finger to check every bitcoin addresses their customers are going to send.