Tesla CEO Elon Musk disassociated himself from another fake video that promoted a cryptocurrency scam.
The video was originally shared on Twitter. It was a fake Musk promo that claimed to promote a cryptocurrency platform offering 30% returns on deposits. Scammers used original footage from a TED Talk by Musk and Chris Anderson, which was held at a TED conference that took place in Vancouver in April.
The tweet and video attracted the attention of Musk himself. He has been more active since his acquisition of the social media platform for $44 billion. The SpaceEx CEO and Tesla CEO replied in his trademark comical style to the video:
Because Musk is a global technology innovator, scammers have made Musk a target to make money off investors and social media users. Scammers promising unrealistic returns on investments are a danger to those not tech-savvy users.
This type of cryptocurrency fraud was rampant in 2020 and 2021. The United States Federal Trade Commission released a report which estimated that more than $80 million worth cryptocurrency had been stolen from unsuspecting victims within a period of six months.
Due to Musk’s love for cryptocurrency and pro-Dogecoin views, fraudulent YouTube live streams quickly became a popular weapon. The now-famous appearance of Musk on Saturday Night Live on American television proved lucrative for scammers. In May 2013, the FTC seized scam addresses that had received approximately 9.7 million Dogecoins worth $5 million.
Musk’s purchase of Twitter comes with the promise to promote free speech. The Tesla CEO, however, also promised to eradicate the alarming number spam and scambots that have bilked users of millions of dollars in recent years during his Ted Talk appearance earlier this year.
“A top priority I would have is eliminating the spam and scam bots and the bot armies that are on Twitter. They make the product much worse. If I had a Dogecoin for every crypto scam I saw, we’d have 100 billion Dogecoin.”
Trading Setup has previously shown that deepfake video have been common since 2017 when the term was first used . Artificial intelligence and computer-generated video, audio and images are used by creators to deceive, manipulate and scam viewers.
The potential of blockchain technology to combat fake news and deepfake has been lauded. However, social media platforms still have a lot of fake news.
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