Image created with Canva under creative Commons
Last week I was sharing with you the latest move on the FUD dissemination, the last one to join the Circus was Twitter.
Today, checking the metrics of my ADS campaign on Twitter (both personally and to promote SMARC ICO) I have noticed the promoted impressions went up. Then I saw that in my email I got a notification that many of my Tweets were approved to participate in the ADS campaign.
To get an idea of what kind of content I am talking about, please check them here below;
~~~ embed:978734987490021376 twitter metadata:Rm94eHJleHx8aHR0cHM6Ly90d2l0dGVyLmNvbS9Gb3h4cmV4L3N0YXR1cy85Nzg3MzQ5ODc0OTAwMjEzNzZ8 ~~~
~~~ embed:973493792186753024 twitter metadata:Rm94eHJleHx8aHR0cHM6Ly90d2l0dGVyLmNvbS9Gb3h4cmV4L3N0YXR1cy85NzM0OTM3OTIxODY3NTMwMjR8 ~~~
~~~ embed:978983943994314753 twitter metadata:Rm94eHJleHx8aHR0cHM6Ly90d2l0dGVyLmNvbS9Gb3h4cmV4L3N0YXR1cy85Nzg5ODM5NDM5OTQzMTQ3NTN8 ~~~
~~~ embed:966294957987377157 twitter metadata:Rm94eHJleHx8aHR0cHM6Ly90d2l0dGVyLmNvbS9Gb3h4cmV4L3N0YXR1cy85NjYyOTQ5NTc5ODczNzcxNTd8 ~~~
~~~ embed:964495313292660737 twitter metadata:Rm94eHJleHx8aHR0cHM6Ly90d2l0dGVyLmNvbS9Gb3h4cmV4L3N0YXR1cy85NjQ0OTUzMTMyOTI2NjA3Mzd8 ~~~
As you can see, all of them are related to cryptos, of course, they do not fall in the deceptive information or crypto solicitation, but, still are related to the topic. So we can confirm that the policy is at the moment not that strict.
Checking quickly with some colleagues (investors and lectures in the scene) I found that the opinion is the same, there is no clear policy in place for the moment. They have shared with me this article from Techcrunch which is a reputable source.
According to that article, the focus for the moment is on the accounts which make a crypto solicitation. As seen in my last report on the matter I even shared how these scams work. Long story short; fake profile users mimic posts by crypto starts (i.e., Vitalik Buterin, Roger Ver, Lee from Litecoin, etc.) and say that they are doing giveaways, to participate you need to confirm your public address by sending a small ETH amount.
Of course, there is no giveaway, and you give your hard earned crypto for free to some scammers. Worst of all, they use hundreds of bots which spam the Tweet claiming they have received the claimed ETH on their wallets, they even post screens of that, which make unattentive people fall easily.
According to the mentioned article above, Twitter has put the focus on those accounts, deleting or suspending them.
Reuters reports that an account posing as Elon Musk, which had last month targeted followers of the billionaire and claimed to be giving away cryptocurrency, was suspended as of yesterday.
In the end, everything comes back to the main issue, which is TRUST. Which coincidentally is the main problem for which Blockchain was invented. Is a little paradox that the Cryptospace is full of scammers, ill-willed people, and fake news everywhere. Twitter is doing something, but the problem is much more significant.
The age of the internet is stocked with thousands of examples on how its pros are countered by hacks, scams (Nigeria scam emails), and many other strategies ethic-lacking people use to exploit the unaware. In the end, we look for Blockchain to counter many of those mentioned above. When there are public records, ID-related transactions, unmodifiable ledgers, there will not be much for those to do (they will find a way to do the bad, but it will not as extended as now). Until a hacking quantum computer is available for the crooks it will take some time, most probably the CIA will use it to decrypt your account before ;-)
There is something key here, companies nor the government can be diligent for us. So, in the crypto space individuals take the full responsibility of taking care of themselves, this means, saving your keys securely, not giving away your password or private key, etc. In the social media environment, we have to be most careful to unsolicited contacts, and any "too good to be true" offer.
If people were not falling easily on these vultures, there would be no need for regulations, but we are far away from that. Until we have a heavy-regulated scene, it will take some time, until then we need to be careful.
The FB-CambridgeAnalytics scandal is worth an entirely separate post, but it comes right to my mind when talking about Trust and social media companies. How can we believe FB is looking after our interest when they ban alleged ICO-Scams adverts content when themselves cannot even handle business partners who are claimed to be top-notch companies?
That is a heck of a question and will need probably the length of a paper to discuss it and analyze in depth the root of the problem. With a lack of control from the users on how their information is traded and handled, there is not much to do, except to either close your facebook account (which does not delete all the already provided data) or to wish for the best.
At least in Europe, they are taking the things seriously by implementing this next May the GDPR regulation, which in summary forces company to disclose everything on how they will manage and handle internally and externally the information provided by their users or clients. On the other hand, gives people the right to request an electronically readable report with all the private data that the company has on them.
On the one hand, we have companies trying to counter the conmen, on the other we have giant e-companies turning on us for the benefit of the elite, manipulating our will, creating FUD and playing with our fears to obtain easy votes. We are living in quite exciting times.
Underlying everything, I sense a most crucial point, which is the fight of the system against the people on the control of their lives, their finance, access to information, and the utter concept of freedom. That is at the end, what the Blockchain is all about, and we are going through an open battle.
All graphic content was created with Canva
 @Santana33 | ||
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Crypto is the future and I believe every discerning mind will come to recognize that. I'll have to admit there is need for regulation to curb the proliferation of ICO.
I also believe so, we still need time and to overcome many difficult times, as the one we are going through right now. But no new technology or disrupting idea had an easy time before mass-adoption.
One thing for sure, everything should goes to the process of hard work. That is more essential.
@santana33 nice meeting ya. Looking forward to our future endeavours.
Cheers
Thanks, same here, looking forward.
In as much as I understand the message, there was a part of it I think you don't know what it means.
By typing the above, you meant anything and everything the word 'scam' represents in that context is Nigerian. And the whole of what is inside Nigeria. More than 200million of us.
Do I mean there are no scam emails emanating from Nigeria? No. Does that mean I support those scammers? Of course Not. It hurts, there are thousands of us trying to make it legitimately.
I have seen those type of scams on twitter as well. Asking people for example to send 0.002 ETH for 5 ETH.
Do well to be fair to some of us among the over 200 million Nigerians, we are not all that bad.
Do not take it personally, and is not a generalization, we are talking about a normal type of scam, unfort. is known as Nigerian email scam, even when some of those are not necessarily from Nigeria.
I believe there are many people doing good, and I see it in Steemit where there are many users from there adding value to the community.
I noticed that too. Generalizations have a way of shadowing the (important) message. I'm not Nigerian but I've met pretty decent ones.
Thank you. One thing I noticed with proof, there are some criminals (on cyberspace) from within Africa, not Nigerians who disguise as Nigerians. They use the name of this country to commit criminal offenses.
I believe you, and I understand the struggle you honest ones have to go through to actually land a gig. That's probably something that won't change any time soon, but I'm wishing you the very best as the legit Nigerian you are.
And oh, most of them are not even within Africa.
Thanks for the encouraging words and I wish you the best also.
That is awful! Thank you so much for putting this information out there.
Unfortunately, scammers find opportunities in times of new technology/advancement as many people are unaware of the situation. We'll have to be cautious independently and do our part in filtering the scum as a collective community.
-Rob
Indeed Rob, thanks for your comment and support. I believe also that the best regulation is auto-regulation, same is happening here in Steemit, there is no @Ned coming over and banning users, but we (i.e. SteemCleaners or our project SmartSteem) put barriers so spammers, scammers, etc. have a harder time.
Great post! your post is full of information, thanks for sharing and thanks for inform me.I upvote your post.Keep it up and share nice posts like this.
Hmmm interesting.. This is deep.. Thanks for sharing
One thing for sure, everything should goes to the process of hard work. That is more essential.
Can't wait for decentralized social platforms on their own blockchain like Steemit to get more market share so this problem of banning crypto can just go away!
In a way is necessary, and as shown by my own case, is not a total ban, looks like they are really targeting a certain crowd of alleged scammers. Probably Twitter is getting a huge revenue out of the whole crypto and ICO space right now, and as a business is hard to say no to that.
https://steemit.com/busy/@ardi94/for-the-sake-of-ideals
It will not work out in the long run if you are just posting unrelated stuff in other people work, appreciate your consideration for the next time.
@SteemFlagRewards Comment Spam
Great article. I believe that these bans will make room for legitimate ICOs and other crypto projects. By the way, check out my new project - http://tokenlion.net
Feedback is appreciated!
Indeed, regulation is doing the whole space a favor, I was scheptic at the beggining but after seeing my Twitter channel was not affected at all, I realize is a targeted ban which is good in the end.
I like your idea, though there are similar ones in the space. I am supporting SmartContainers ICO as Community Manager, could you reach me on disscord please? @santana33#2022
Thanks for the update